Sonja K. Foss

Beyond persuasion: A proposal for an invitational rhetoric

Most traditional rhetorical theories reflect a patriarchal bias in the positive value they accord to changing and thus dominating others. In this essay, an alternative rhetoric—invitational rhetoric—is proposed, one grounded in the feminist principles of equality, immanent value, and self‐determination. Its purpose is to offer an invitation to understanding, and its communicative modes are the offering of perspectives and the creation of the external conditions of safety, value, and freedom.

Ambiguity as persuasion: The Vietnam Veterans memorial

Visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial generally are deeply moved by it—regardless of their positions on the Vietnam War itself. In this essay, five visual features of the memorial are identified that enable it to appeal to virtually all visitors: (a) It violates the conventional form of war memorials; (b) It assumes a welcoming stance; (c) It provides little information to the visitor; (d) It focuses attention on those who did not survive the war; and (e) It generates multiple referents for its visual components. The effectiveness of the memorial suggests that it may serve as a model for contemporary anti‐war rhetoric.

A rhetorical schema for the evaluation of visual imagery

In this essay, a schema is proposed for the evaluation of visual imagery from a rhetorical perspective. In the schema, judgments of quality about a visual image are made in terms of the function communicated by the image. Three processes are involved in such judgments— identification of a function or functions communicated by an image, assessment of the degree to which substantive and stylistic dimensions of the image support the communication of the function, and evaluation of the legitimacy of the function. The schema is illustrated in applications to a chair from the Memphis design consortium and to The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.

THE STATUS OF RESEARCH ON WOMEN AND COMMUNICATION

The purpose of this essay is to survey and summarize the research on women, gender, and sex differences that has been published in speech communication journals. Five categories of research emerged from this survey: historical treatments of women, sex differences, images of women in the media, education and pedagogy, and surveys and integrative works. While future research is needed to fill in the gaps made evident by this survey of literature, perhaps more important is to begin to question and investigate the assumptions underlying current research about women.

Retooling an image: Chrysler corporation's rhetoric of redemption

In this essay, the “bailout”; of Chrysler Corporation by the federal government is analyzed as a rhetorical act that symbolized Chryslers failures and revealed possible sources of guilt for Chrysler as well. An analysis of Chryslers advertising suggests that it was motivated by an effort to expunge its guilt and to create a new public identity. The strategies Chrysler selected, however, failed in part because of the strength of the symbolism of the bailout itself.

The construction of feminine spectatorship in Garrison Keillor's radio monologues

In this essay, the monologues of Garrison Keillor on the radio program, A Prairie Home Companion (later American Radio Company), are analyzed to discover how a feminine spectator is constructed rhetorically in a text. Keillors monologues, we suggest, create a preferred spectator position that relies on traditionally feminine competencies. This construction is accomplished through Keillors refusal to privilege vision, dismantling of the male gaze, creation of Lake Wobegon as a feminine setting, and feminine speaking style. In his adoption of the feminine spectator perspective, Keillor provides an opportunity for listeners to experience and accord value to a feminist epistemology.

Transforming Rhetoric Through Feminist Reconstruction: A Response to the Gender Diversity Perspective

In this response to Condits essay, the tenets of her gender diversity perspective are outlined and addressed. The authors conclude that although Condits tenets concerning gender are visionary, those concerning rhetoric constitute a defense of a traditional conception of rhetoric, unchanged by gender and feminism. They then outline the tenets of their feminist-reconstructionist perspective, one which focuses on the reconstruction of rhetoric through a feminist lens.

Rhetoric and the visual image: A resource unit

Instructional objectives, methods, and resources are suggested for using visual elements such as drawing, painting, architecture, and the visual environment in general as a focus for teaching theories of contemporary rhetoric. To illustrate the application of contemporary rhetorical theory to visual phenomena, the concepts of three theorists—I.A. Richards, Kenneth Burke, and Richard Weaver—are used to analyze three visual images—a painting by Joan Miro, a Burger King restaurant, and the ocean‐front strip at Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Our Journey to Repowered Feminism: Expanding the Feminist Toolbox

We explore our feminist journey using Bitzers rhetorical situation. We started with an exigence of oppression, the audience as representatives of the dominant system, the constraints as unequal structural features, and strategies of petition and resistance. We then moved to conceptualizing the exigence as interpretation, the audience as ourselves, the constraints as the capacity to imagine, and the key strategy as deliberate choice. This conception led us to a temporary alliance with power feminism and ultimately to repowered feminism.

Re-Sourcement as Emancipation: A Case Study of Ritualized Sewing

Re-sourcement as a rhetorical strategy for emancipation is explored as it occurs through ritualized sewing. Re-sourcement involves creating and living in a world through energy drawn from sources other than patriarchy. It is accomplished in ritualized sewing through rhetorical processes of declaring a commitment, entering into marginal space, cleansing, demarcating boundaries, working magic, returning to the external world, and emblematic display.