Keith D. Miller

Slave mutiny as argument, argument as fiction, fiction as America: the case of Frederick Douglass's The heroic slave

Based on the historical incident of a slave mutiny The Heroic Slave served as another important weapon in combating slavery. The nautical revolt provided Douglass an opportunity to hone argumentative strategies that he had wielded for years on the platform, strategies that he varied by writing fiction. For him, each act of speaking and writing repeated, intensified, and varied the form of his argument. In both his orations and The Heroic Slave, the crusading abolitionist advanced what Kenneth Burke calls a “perspective by incongruity. “In this essay we will apply Burkes theory to analyze Douglasss perspective, and will apply and adjust structuralist notions of Claude Levi‐Strauss (1986) and Frederic Jameson (1972) to examine the rhetorical problem facing Douglass and the interargumentation that he produced to transform and overcome it.

Theresa Jarnagin Enos, In Memoriam

On November 2, 2016, Theresa Jarnagin Enos unexpectedly passed away at her home in Tucson, Arizona, leaving behind a trailblazing legacy of work in writing, teaching, scholarly editing, (wo) mentoring, administration, and service. An important figure in contemporary rhetoric and composition studies, Theresa—a self-proclaimed “maverick”—founded this journal, Rhetoric Review, on her own in 1982 due to the lack of publication venues for research concerning the history and theory of rhetoric. As the first peer-reviewed journal in rhetoric and composition studies, Theresa worked tirelessly to make Rhetoric Review the journal we know today—publishing manuscripts from the field’s superstars (Jim W. Corder, Frank D’Angelo, and Michael Halloran were among the first contributors in the inaugural issue), establishing an editorial board, soliciting peer reviewers, editing each manuscript scrupulously, advertising for new subscribers, all while printing issue copies and mailing them off to institutions herself. In 1987, Theresa was recruited by the University of Arizona where she helped establish its PhD program in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English (RCTE). During her twenty-seven year tenure at the University of Arizona, Theresa taught undergraduate and graduate courses, served as associate composition director, program director of RCTE and, of course, maintained her editorship of Rhetoric Review. Theresa authored, edited, or co-edited over ten books including A Sourcebook for Basic Writing Teachers, Writing Program Administrator’s Resource, The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, Gender Roles and Faculty Lives in Rhetoric and Composition, The Promise and Perils of Writing Program Administration, Defining the New Rhetorics, Living Rhetoric and Composition, Beyond PostProcess and Postmodernism: Essays on the Spaciousness of Rhetoric, in addition to numerous articles and chapters. The entries from colleagues and former students included in this Burkean Parlor allow us just a brief glimpse of Theresa’s influence on the lives and careers of so many of us in our discipline; how fortunate we are to have known her and to have learned from her.

Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and its Sources.

Martin Luther King Jrs words defined, mobilized and embodied much of the American civil rights movement, crystallizing the hope and demand for racial justice in America. His powerful sermons and speeches were unique in their ability to unite blacks and whites in the quest for reform. Yet, disclosures about Kings unattributed appropriations in his PhD dissertation have raised the broader question of whether Kings persuasive voice was truly his own. In this study of the language of King, Keith D. Miller explores his words to find the intellectual roots, spiritual resonances and actual sources of those speeches and essays that continue to reverberate in Americas mind and conscience. Miller argues that his skilful borrowing and blending of the black oral and white written traditions was in fact the key to his language and to his effectiveness. It made his message of hope and deliverance accessible to all people and enabled blacks and whites to move in harmony to action and commitment.