Rhetorical Aims Research Articles

No Mere Culinary Curiosities: Using Historical Cookbooks in the Library Classroom

Cookbooks are neglected as information sources and teaching tools in academic libraries, especially for undergraduate learners. Approachable but complex primary sources, they can be examined as a records of people’s food habits, as a window on the authors or their societies and cultures, or as texts with rhetorical aims involving more than just cooking and eating. This study surveys the literature on the use of cookbooks in scholarship and pedagogy, especially in the context of interdisciplinary food studies. It also explains their relevance for the library or archives classroom, both as potential research sources and as tools for teaching primary source literacy skills, and the common barriers to their collection and discovery. Finally, it outlines uses for and approaches to teaching with cookbooks and offers examples of the author’s experience doing so in a special collections setting.

Teaching rhetoric: A proposal to renew rhetorical education in Hungarian and Central European contexts

Rhetorical education faces significant challenges of the virtual knowledge society. Classroom teaching in skill-development still seems inevitable, however, the face-to-face experience has to gain more momentum and improve quality. It is especially important in Central European contexts where the history of teaching rhetoric has not been without fractures after World War II. The present paper is an approach that conceptualizes new aims of teaching rhetoric and suggests ways to reform the educational program of rhetoric at the secondary level. It sets of from the assumption that rhetoric should no longer be conceived and taught of as a toolkit to formulate texts, but rather as a behaviour and sensitivity to human affairs. Thus, rhetorical education should facilitate not so much the production of speeches but the birth of the rhetorical citizen. The education serving this aim does not the eliminate the classical roots of rhetorical literacy. On the contrary, it exploits the dynamic capacities of the two-millennia old faculty. The paper introduces a detailed, three-phased educational process with which rhetorical sensitivity can be bred in the classroom, while improving rhetoric as a subject matter itself.

Refutational Strategies in Mencius’s Argumentative Discourse on Human Nature

Mencius, a prominent Confucian philosopher in the Warring States period (c. 453 BC–221 BC) of ancient China, is well-known for his argumentative skills, including his refutational skills used to maintain his own standpoints. This paper attempts to reveal how Mencius refuted his opponents argumentatively and strategically on the issue of human nature. To this end, the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation is adopted to first reconstruct Mencius’s argumentative discourse on human nature according to the four stages in critical discussion—the confrontation, opening, argumentation and concluding stages. Under the ancient Chinese historical and cultural context, Mencius’s argumentative discourse about human nature was developed in three critical discussions, between Mencius the protagonist, and his explicit interlocutors and implicit adversaries who held different views on human nature—the antagonists. The discussions were undertaken around three single mixed differences of opinion concerning three propositions, with resolution of the first difference of opinion serving as a starting point of the second, and the resolution of the second as a starting point of the third. Then based on the reconstruction, the paper elaborates the refutational strategies that Mencius employed in various stages, such as dissociation, reductio ad absurdum based on refutational analogy, and conciliation. It further points out that the employment of these strategies is strategic maneuvering undertaken by Mencius in an attempt to realize both dialectical and rhetorical aims.

Does Luke's Preface Resemble a Greek Decree? Comparing the Epigraphical and Papyrological Evidence of Greek Decrees with Ancient Preface Formulae

This article challenges the argument of John Moles that Luke's preface (1.1–4) resembles a Greek decree more than any other type of writing. Although Moles is not the first to recognise the supposed decree-like features in Luke's preface, he goes further by arguing that the preface is intentionally structured like a decree for the author's rhetorical aim. In this article, I demonstrate that Moles’ argument goes too far and that Luke's preface simply displays features conventional to prefaces of historiographical writing – despite common structural patterns of preface writing and decree formulae – and is not layered with additional rhetorical meaning.

Visual and Verbal Self-Referentiality in Russian Avant-Garde Picturebooks

The early Soviet picturebook arose in an age of propaganda that conceived of children’s literature as a “forgotten weapon” in the battle to train a new populace to inhabit the new post-revolutionary world. For this reason, one can detect a variety of rhetorical aims in early Soviet picturebooks. This article examines visual and verbal self-referentiality in Russian avant-garde picturebooks along aesthetic, educational, and political axes, focusing first on avant-garde self-referentiality evident in works by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Daniil Kharms that typify the avant-garde movement and then turning to picturebook self-referentiality exemplified in works by Samuil Marshak and Ilya Ionov, which reflect increasing consciousness of the picturebook as genre. It argues that avant-garde self-referentiality must be considered within a broader avant-garde context, while the peculiarities of picturebook self-referentiality in this period illustrate the establishment of the early Soviet picturebook as a new branch of culture, as well as material conditions, cultural shifts, and power consolidation after the revolution. Early Soviet picturebooks employ the child reader in building a vision of the future, although the nature of that world and of the child fit to be its citizen diverges widely, showing how this time period represented a significant aesthetic and political crossroads.

Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity by Katherine A. Shaner

Reviewed by: Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity by Katherine A. Shaner Chris L. de Wet Katherine A. Shaner Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity New York: Oxford University Press, 2018 Pp. x + 207. $99.00. The title of this book, Enslaved Leadership, might sound to some like a contradiction in terms. How could enslaved persons of antiquity possibly occupy positions of leadership, authority, and indeed, mastery? But Katherine Shaner's illuminating monograph furthers slavery studies by demonstrating, quite convincingly, that ancient slavery is not at all a simple matter. The reality of social status distinctions in antiquity were probably more ambiguous, paradoxical, and just plain messy. The introductory chapter of Shaner's book explains the theoretical and methodological presuppositions and frameworks of the study. In this regard, Shaner's book ticks all the right boxes. Following in the path of feministic hermeneutics—sensitive to matters such as kyriarchy and intersectionality—the reader is reminded that "materials about enslaved persons do not provide windows into reality; rather, they advance arguments that reinforce certain social hierarchies" (xiv). The first chapter of Enslaved Leadership examines the presence and absence of slaves in the archaeological record and studies of three sites in ancient Ephesus, namely the harbor, marketplace, and Terrace Houses. The chapter aptly demonstrates the dis/appearance of slaves in archaeological evidence but more importantly, the power dynamics at play in the dis/appearance of the enslaved. Here Shaner reminds readers that an archaeological site like Ephesus is no mere museum, but it too is a text, and like the literary record, the archaeological record exhibits various strategies in the regulation and performance of slavery. The analysis of these three spaces in Ephesus betrays an important fact: slaves participated in complex ways in the social and commercial life of the city. Sadly, the map of ancient Ephesus on page 2 has such small print that it is basically illegible. Chapter Two uses the first-century c.e. Persicus inscription, which was already mentioned in Chapter One, as a lens to analyze the ways in which Roman public (and religious) policies attempted to reinforce social boundaries that were most likely, on grassroots level, quite opaque. Shaner argues that the Persicus inscription, which attempts to regulate enslaved participation and influence in the Artemis [End Page 673] cult, is evidence of three historical possibilities: first, that slaves were financially capable of purchasing infants at the markets and were savvy enough to dedicate the infants to Artemis in order to save costs on raising the child. Second, that slaves and free persons, in some cases, performed the same types of labor, and that elites were bothered by free persons engaging in servile labor. Finally, and this point is crucial in the whole argument of the book, it is possible that Persicus's mention of "unsuitable" persons purchasing priesthoods might be evidence that some slaves were purchasing such sacerdotal offices. In Chapter Three, Shaner asks some new, challenging, and creative questions that, without a doubt, help us to better imagine the possible relationship(s) between the persons addressed in Paul's Letter to Philemon. Shaner rightly decenters Paul (and Philemon) from the enquiry and focuses attention on Onesimus, not simply as a person-tool to better understand Paul, but as a relevant and possibly even authoritative person in himself. Shaner utilizes the inherent ambiguity in the letter and proposes that Onesimus might have held a leadership position in the church. She argues this possibility, not implausibly, from the language of diakonia so present in the letter. The service Paul asked from Onesimus, Shaner argues, was not simply the generic service of a slave, but service in cultic and religious practices that might have been similar to other religious groups in Ephesus. Onesimus is therefore considered to have been an enslaved leader, and Paul's rhetoric of power in the letter then begins to appear much like that of the Persicus inscription. The rhetoric aims to settle, to an extent, the power ambiguities and tensions that arose as a result of enslaved leaders in the church. A further exploration of the ambiguities and, especially, the tensions between elite and enslaved authority is provided in Chapter Four, which showcases the depictions...

To Flee or Not to Flee? Matthew 10:23 and Third Century Flight in Persecution

Abstract When faced with persecution, Christians behaved in a range of ways, from confessing and accepting (or even provoking) martyrdom to apostasising. Another option was to flee. Tertullian’s perspective on flight varied with the rhetorical purposes of his writings. Other third century writers, notably Clement, Origen and Cyprian, argued that flight was a viable option in order to make life safer for those left behind, to avoid being complicit in the persecutors’ sin and for preservation in order to continue one’s work and witness. All four cited or alluded to Matthew 10:23 in support of their position. This paper explores the theological and contextual factors which informed their differing exegesis of this passage, concluding that theology was the primary influence for Clement and Origen, rhetorical aims for Tertullian, and for Cyprian, the role and duty of the bishop in changing circumstances.

Bloody Rhetoric and Civic Unrest: Rhetorical Aims of Human Blood Splashing in the 2010 Thai Political Revolt

ABSTRACT In 2010, thousands of Thai citizens from the Red Shirt Movement splashed seventy-nine gallons of their blood in Bangkok to revolt for democracy. I argue that their conduct exemplified kaya karma in the Thai culture: the intentional use of the body and physical actions to achieve an end. Drawing upon my interviews with protesters in Thailand, I show how the demonstration represented the Red Shirts’ intentions to construct a patriotic identity; build solidarity and consubstantiation; defame the prime minister; and invoke fear, intimidation, and discomfort in the government. Altogether, the protest aimed to bolster the movement’s authority and disparage the government. Examining the Red Shirts’ kaya karma, I contend, enables us to further engage “the facts of nonusage” to broaden the trajectory of comparative rhetorical studies beyond the focus on canonical texts of elite exemplars and complicate our ability to see the available means of persuasion in non-Western contexts.

Bloody Rhetoric and Civic Unrest: Rhetorical Aims of Human Blood Splashing in the 2010 Thai Political Revolt

ABSTRACTIn 2010, thousands of Thai citizens from the Red Shirt Movement splashed seventy-nine gallons of their blood in Bangkok to revolt for democracy. I argue that their conduct exemplified kaya karma in the Thai culture: the intentional use of the body and physical actions to achieve an end. Drawing upon my interviews with protesters in Thailand, I show how the demonstration represented the Red Shirts’ intentions to construct a patriotic identity; build solidarity and consubstantiation; defame the prime minister; and invoke fear, intimidation, and discomfort in the government. Altogether, the protest aimed to bolster the movement’s authority and disparage the government. Examining the Red Shirts’ kaya karma, I contend, enables us to further engage “the facts of nonusage” to broaden the trajectory of comparative rhetorical studies beyond the focus on canonical texts of elite exemplars and complicate our ability to see the available means of persuasion in non-Western contexts.

Arresting God’s Attention: The Rhetorical Intent and Strategies of Job 3

Abstract Interpreters have struggled to make sense of Job’s opening speech in Job 3; the speech seems out of place following the prologue. This article uses rhetorical criticism to understand Job’s rhetorical aim and strategies and thus attempts to bring clarity to the current understanding of Job’s rhetorical goal. To do this, the article establishes Job’s rhetorical situation, analyzes the forms (Gattungen) Job uses, and identifies and analyzes five rhetorical strategies: imprecation, tropes, pseudosorites, allusion, and rhetorical questions with delayed disambiguation.

Modernity as a False Deity: Takfiri Anachronism in the Islamic State Group’s Media Strategy

This article focuses on the way the Islamic State (IS) group communicates and performs a return to the origins of Islam in seventh-century Arabia. IS performs what it imagines to be a caliphate that follows the “methodology of the Prophet”—in what represents an operationalisation of long-alluded-to Islamist rhetorical aims about a return to an Islamic authenticity and about undoing Western influences. It deems everyone who disagrees with it as simply anti-Islamic. I refer to that media strategy, which IS deploys to target its enemies as infidels, as takfiri anachronism (takfiri in Arabic is an adjective describing accusations of apostasy). I seek to demonstrate how IS’s takfiri anachronism relies on mixed discursive textual and visual tactics that aim to conceal its contemporary political hybridity, vulnerability and its presentist approach to Islamic texts. I analyze IS’s self-presentation as a caliphate in a number of its official videos and statements. I focus on the initial IS announcement on the establishment of the caliphate and how its leader Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi performed his role as “the caliph” in the summer of 2014. I also examine how the parallelism between its videos showing the destruction of the Iraqi-Syrian common border, and its videos displaying the destruction of pre-Islamic archeological monuments, presents an absolute binary between the categories of “Muslim” and “infidel,” which is projected across time.

Galatians 3 and the Redefinition of the Criteria of Covenant Membership in the New Faith-Era in Christ

This article firstly evaluates the Radical New Perspective on Paul and the Messianic Judaist approach to the letter to the Galatians, which can be seen as similar approaches. In these approaches, the rhetoric in the letter to the Galatians is perceived to be directed to gentile believers only, which converges with the view that a continuing distinction between gentile and Judaean believers is upheld in the Pauline corpus. This evaluation involves testing this kind of approach in terms of its methodology and implications, with a specific focus on Paul's use of the first person singular and first person plural in the letter. Secondly, in answer to the above evaluation, the criteria for identity and covenant membership are pursued by focusing on Gal 3. The Spirit-flesh contrast, which converges with the faith-works contrast, as well as the contrast between the new era in Christ and the eschatologically old era under the Law, is argued to be the controlling paradigm for determining identity and covenant membership in the letter. Although this new identity stands in continuity with the promise to Abraham, it is understood in a redrawn and renewed way. Believers' position toward the Law and Paul's rhetorical aims in Gal 3 are reconsidered in light of the above.

The Apostolic Fathers and Paul eds. by Todd D. Still and David E. White

Reviewed by: The Apostolic Fathers and Paul eds. by Todd D. Still and David E. White Sandy L. Haney todd d. still and david e. white (eds.), The Apostolic Fathers and Paul (Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate 2; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017). Pp. xxii + 282. $114. As the second volume of the Pauline and Patristics Scholars in Debate series, The Apostolic Fathers and Paul examines the reception of Paul in the Apostolic Fathers. Readers will appreciate the volume's broad understanding of the reception history of Paul and the Pauline tradition. The editors acknowledge the complexity of defining both "reception" and "Pauline" material. The volume gives attention to each text of the Apostolic Fathers, even those without obvious connection to Paul, thus nuancing and expanding the conversation regarding Paul's relation to the corpus of the Apostolic Fathers. Such breadth in content is echoed in the myriad methods and approaches offered by the authors. David L. Eastman ("Paul as Martyr in the Apostolic Fathers") discusses the beginnings of the Pauline cult and particularly the development of the view of Paul as martyr. He addresses the import of this concept for ecclesial authority and its rhetorical weight during times of persecution. Through a comparative analysis in "The Implications of Paul as Epistolatory Author and Church Planter in 1 Clement and Polycarp's Philippians," Paul Hartog explores how both epistles provide insight into Paul's letter-writing ministry as well as his church-planting approach, focusing particular attention on the way Philippians may assist in determining the date of Revelation. [End Page 361] Clayton N. Jeffords ("Missing Pauline Tradition in the Apostolic Fathers? Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, Papias, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and the Epistle to Diognetus") nuances the ways in which Pauline influence in these works might be determined and defined, probing reasons for possible absences. In "The Absence of Paul in 2 Clement," Paul Foster examines 2 Clement and its supposed Pauline parallels, arguing against any direct dependence on Paul and Pauline writings and attributing the similarities between 2 Clement and Paul to shared Christian traditions. Carlton Paget problematizes the quest for Pauline influence on Barnabas in "Paul and the Epistle of Barnabas," teasing out the various levels of Barnabas's potential "Pauline" knowledge. Reading 1 Clement as an allegorical letter in "The Reception of Paul in 1 Clement," Clare K. Rothschild demonstrates 1 Clement's multifaceted, purposeful use of Paul's 1 Corinthians to address a new situation involving issues of authority and schism. Todd D. Still's short essay on Ignatius and Paul, "Ignatius and Paul on Suffering and Death: A Short, Comparative Study," argues, against Arthur J. Droge, that Paul does not share Ignatius's pathological desire for death. David J. Downs ("The Pauline Concept of Union with Christ in Ignatius of Antioch") analyzes the theme of union with Christ in Ignatius, contending that Ignatius's thoughts share great similarity with Paul's theology, even if direct dependence cannot be proven. Through a sociogeographic perspective in "Paul, Ignatius, and Thirdspace: A Socio-Geographic Exploration," Harry O. Maier compares and contrasts Paul's and Ignatius's creation of Thirdspace, particularly regarding their vision of church. He focuses attention on the way Ignatius employs civic language and imagery in the controversies over ecclesial leadership. Giving attention to social setting in "Neither 'Pure Evangelic Manna' nor 'Tainted Scraps': Reflections on the Study of Pseudo-Ignatius," L. Stephanie Cobb proposes that Pseudo-Ignatius uses the apostolic authority of Paul and Ignatius—particularly Pauline reception through Ignatius—to offer a moderating ethical position in the polarized ascetic environment of fourth-century Antioch. In "Polycarp's Reception of Paul and Rhetorical Structure: Can One Inform the Other?," David E. Wilhite analyzes the potential connections between the rhetorical aims of Polycarp's first letter to the Philippians and Polycarp's use of Pauline materials, particularly in light of Polycarp's use of Johannine, not Pauline, material in his attacks against docetism. Andrew Gregory's "Afterword: Some Reflections on Methods and Approaches," provides a helpful, critical synthesis of the volume's essays, highlighting the relations among the authors' arguments and marking intersections between this work and other recent publications. The volume is...

Expanding what it means to play like a girl: gender, performance, and redefinition

ABSTRACTThe assertion that one plays like a girl has historically been an accusation of weakness and ineptitude. Traditionally thought of as a slur that disempowers girls, this phrase also disciplines boys’ performance in sports. A discourse that attempts to resignify the phrase you play like a girl has recently circulated in statements from, and about, the U.S. Women's Soccer Team, President Obama, and a Procter and Gamble brand's commercial campaign, to name a few. This rhetoric aims to break down stereotypes about what it means to play like a girl and to empower girls to play. Using theories of definition as argument and gender performativity, I argue that this discourse expands what it means to play like a girl.

Strategic maneuvering with presentational choices in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports

Abstract In the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting is approached in this study as a particular communicative activity type, which can be reconstructed as part of a critical discussion. CSR reports excerpts are viewed in the analysis as parts of a virtual critical discussion in which a company acts as a protagonist maneuvering strategically to defend the standpoint according to which the business is operated ethically, and to convince the audience about what is mentioned in the standpoint. The reconstructed standpoint of a CSR report, We are doing business responsibly, may be regarded as stereotypical, since it corresponds to the institutional point of this regulated type of communicative activity. In the first part of the study, a brief overview is given of the CSR reporting activity, then the concept of strategic maneuvering is presented, under its three aspects (topical potential, audience demand, and presentational techniques), as well as the notion of communicative activity type, with a highlight on the role of the (macro-)context and of institutional preconditions in analytical studies on argumentation. The analysis in the latter part of the study concerns presentational techniques used by the protagonist in the confrontation and in the argumentation stages in CSR reporting, in order to reconcile rhetorical and dialectical aims by maneuvering strategically. The coordinatively and the subordinatively compound structure of argumentation, the symptomatic argument scheme, as well as reformulations of the standpoint, use of emotionally endowed words, concentration of the arguments in the form of nominal sentences acting as headings are among the most important presentational devices constitutive of argumentative moves aimed at convincing the audience that the company acts ethically, but also at promoting a positive image of its business responsibility, which appears to be the ground for winning the discussion.

Conceptual Metaphors of Pride in Middlemarch

Abstract This article explores the way George Eliot represents and comments on the ethics of pride in Middlemarch through the skillful use of conventional metaphors. Probably as a result of the long-standing distinction between positive and negative types of pride in Western cultures, the linguistic construction of this two-faceted emotion in Eliot's novelistic discourse is not an arbitrary process, but arises from conventionalized mental models of pride present in her unique narrative method. This uniqueness relies on bringing to fictional encounters this author's particular sensitivity to the psychological nature of this emotion, her own mental awareness of normative behaviors, and her way of recruiting the preconditions and embodied experience of pride to the service of her rhetorical and didactic aims. But this special capacity for representing affective experience can also be seen to be situated within a larger framework of familiar conceptual metaphors that this discussion scrutinizes. This analysis involves tracing the conventionalized embodied expressions for both types of pride as deployed by Eliot within her extraordinarily effective narrative technique.

Richard Oswald, Magnus Hirschfeld, and the possible impossibility of hygienic melodrama

Richard Oswald’s Weimar German film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1918) has long been read as a hygiene film. The film’s co-producer Magnus Hirschfeld and his extensive advocacy to improve living conditions of homosexual men has positioned scholars to see this film in a long line of work aimed to reach and transform public opinion about homosexuality. Hirschfeld had envisioned the film would improve the lives of homosexual men by drawing public attention to the suffering they endure under a legal code, which criminalized male homosexuality. Though central to the film’s emotional and thus rhetorical aims, its melodramatic plot has received little attention. This article thus focuses on the film as melodrama. The goal is to show that, through its adherence to a stylistic of melodramatic impossibility as theorized by Jonathan Goldberg, Different from the Others draws on hygiene film esthetics to compel viewers to imagine a better world, an impulse which runs parallel to the explicit call for social reform captured in the film.

Ethnography and Cultural Translation in the Early Modern Missions

Early modern Christian missionaries often learnt about other cultures in remarkable depth, and made an extremely important contribution to the writing of ethnography and to the global circulation of knowledge. While their cultural insight was usually built upon linguistic expertise, missionary writings were of a complex nature, often combining scientific observations and historical speculations with wider rhetorical aims. In fact, issues such as accommodation to local customs became complex ideological battlegrounds. Whilst an earlier historiography may have been tempted to emphasize either the pioneering character of the Christian missionaries as proto-anthropologists, or – in a more critical fashion – their Eurocentric ideological agendas, there is growing awareness of the crucial importance of the native mediators who acted as knowledge brokers, and who also had their own personal agendas and cultural biases. However, the cultural interactions did not end here: in parallel to these complex acts of local translation, missionaries also ‘translated’ cultural diversity in another direction, to the European Republic of Letters, where they increasingly had to defend religious orthodoxy in the context of a rapidly changing intellectual landscape.

A Comedian Sees the World

A Comedian Sees the World

Ritual Sequence and Narrative Constraints in Leviticus 9:1–10:3

Lev 9:1–10:3 contains two of the most memorable events in the priestly narrative: a public theophany at the tabernacle, and the deaths of Nadav and Avihu. It also contains a long sequence of sacrifices, the importance of which has often been overlooked. This article argues that the ritual acts described in Lev 9 follow established and identifiable patterns, and that only by understanding the ritual logic in this episode is it possible to understand the rhetorical aims of the narrative.