Christopher Lyle Johnstone

Communicating in classical contexts: The centrality of delivery

The contemporary aversion to or disinterest in orality, performance, and delivery in the study of rhetoric and public address ignores the centrality of these elements in the history and prehistory of the discipline. This oversight is particularly puzzling when we consider scholarly examination of the origins and early development of rhetoric in Greece. While various studies of the Older Sophists seek to reconstruct their doctrines and teachings, none makes clear that at least some of these teachers of the speakers art must have recognized the importance of delivery‐especially the importance of using the voice to exploit the sounds and rhythms of words and the acoustical features of the physical settings in which oratory was performed. Fragmentary textual evidence prior to Aristotles Rhetoric suggests that some of the Older Sophists‐most conspicuously Thrasymachus, Antiphon, and Gorgias‐must have been interested in delivery and may have given some instruction in it. Archaeological evidence concerning 5th‐century Athenian speaking settings is even more suggestive, and it permits us to infer several things about the kind of vocal training that these teachers probably provided.

Thoreau and civil disobedience: A rhetorical paradox

A discourse solicits from its auditor certain commitments, both in its argument and in its form. The substantive commitments solcited by the discourse must limit its form. Moreover, in some instances a discourse, if it will honor the demands it makes of its auditor, may take no form whatever. One such discourse is Thoreaus essay on “Civil Disobedience.” It is suggested here that the auditors effort to resolve the paradox inherent in Thoreaus essay constitutes an essential phase in the process of liberation.

Ethics, Wisdom, and the Mission of Contemporary Rhetoric: The Realization of Human Being.

Every rhetoric of historic significance has its mission. Ethical and epistemological themes in contemporary rhetorical scholarship suggest that the mission of contemporary rhetoric is fundamentally humanistic, and thus the overriding end that ought to govern the generation and interpretation of pragmatic discourse is the illumination and affirmation of human nature.

Reagan, rhetoric, and the public philosophy: Ethics and politics in the 1984 campaign

Ethical analysis of Ronald Reagans rhetorical practice enables us to bring order to our recent political history. His 1984 campaign for re‐election is especially fitting as a vehicle for this analysis because Reagan is fundamentally a campaigner and because the campaign centered on normative issues. Appropriate ethical standards are grounded in the values and procedures of democratic decision making. When appraised by these standards—rules of disclosure, argument, confrontation, and public competence—the Reagan campaign is found deficient in upholding principles that undergird the political system within which he operated, and upon which the election process depends for its legitimacy and efficacy.

Situating Deliberative Rhetoric in Ancient Greece: The Bouleutêrion as a Venue for Oratorical Performance

ABSTRACT Our understanding of the origins and early development of Greek rhetoric can be enlarged and sharpened by attending to the specific historical, cultural, and material contexts in which it was embedded. We perceive the cultural meanings and physical challenges of Greek rhetorical practice only to the extent that we consider the actual places and spaces in which it unfolded. This study examines and assesses the bouleutêrion (council house) as a venue for oratorical performance in the ancient Greek world, surveying a range of such buildings and describing their historical contexts, physical settings and configurations, and suitability as oratorical venues.

Rhetoric, Civic Consciousness, and Civic Conscience: The Invention of Citizenship in Classical Greece

Abstract The orthodox liberal conception of society and politics has proven incapable in this country of sustaining a system of social relations in which individualistic and communitarian impulses are balanced, and in which personal freedoms and community controls are not seen as being mutually antagonistic. William Sullivan looks to the classical notion of citizenship for a vision of life that is simultaneously political and moral. The “classical notion” he promotes has its roots in theAthenian conception of citizenship both as aform of consciousness and as a call to duty. Thisform of consciousness grows out of an awareness that we are communal beings and that members of a community can influence the course of both civic and natural events. It ultimately embraces the ideas that social knowledge is fluid and tentative, that multiple viewpoints can claim legitimacy, and that resolutions of social conflicts are achieved through persuasion. Thus, the essential. act of citizenship is “doing rhetoric,” and its most fundamental duties are to participate in governance, to listen and respond to others, to acknowledge our own fallibility, and to advocate for our own views as we participate in civic life.