Rhetorical Context Research Articles

The Trader’s Voice: Rick Santelli’s Tea Party Rant

This essay explores the micro-origins of the Tea Party movement, focusing on Rick Santelli’s February 2009 ‘rant’ at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Contrary to populist readings of the movement and its later anti-Obamacare positions, a close reading of the rhetorical and media contexts of the rant demonstrates that its origins lay in a defense of unregulated, untaxed derivative securities. The particular configuration of the HDTV image and viralizable video content contributed to both the power of the rant and the erasure of its particular context.

Re-Conceiving the Concept of Stewardship: Coal Production and the Importance of a New Christian Context for Appalachia

Abstract In his essay, "The Unsettling of America," Wendell Berry suggests that instead of understanding our current ecological predicaments in terms of "conquerors and victims," we shift our language to "exploiters and nurturers." Berry argues that this subtle but important shift allows us to understand the current ideological divide, not only in terms of a division among people, but also in terms of a division of a person. A critical point of critique for our essay is how the fragmentation of Appalachia results in a fragmented citizenry that is divorced from sustaining ideas of stewardship, once held central to the ideals of Christianity-- at both the individual and communal levels. Our paper asks what would it mean for churches, and other religious organizations generally, to return to a revitalized concept of stewardship by utilizing Berry’s terminology--terminology that is laden with deeply theological meaning--in order to navigate the crisis generated by the coal industry in Appalachia. In particular, we examine the current rhetoric utilized by proponents of coal mining to contrive a context in which coal mining is environmentally, economically, and morally justifiable. This is especially pertinent in exposing "Friends of Coal," a public advocacy group that has been the primary organization driving the rhetorical context of Appalachian lives as more and more people outside Appalachia seek alternatives to coal for our country’s energy needs. By applying Berry’s terminology to this crisis, we contend that instead of understanding the crisis of coal production in terms of efficiency, numbers, quantities, and data, this crisis is better understood in terms of care, character, condition, quality, and kind.

More's 'Neck' in Robinson's Translation of Utopia (1551 and 1556)

UTOPIA, first published in 1516, addresses the ever-difficult issue of how a wise and virtuous citizen should act within a corrupt regime, the exigency of which arguably determined Sir Thomas More’s own death in 1535. The work’s first English translation by Ralph Robinson provides moments of self-consciousness regarding More’s execution and his political position as Lord Chancellor after writing Utopia. Here we analyse one conspicuous moment of embellishment in the translation, within the rhetorical contexts of More’s text, Robinson’s dedication of the English Utopia to William Cecil in 1551, and his removal of that dedicatory epistle from the second edition in 1556. Within Book One, the character Thomas More commends the traveller Raphael Hythloday’s wisdom and experience and encourages him, ‘appoint and dispose yourself that you may apply your wit and diligence to the profit of the weal public, though it be somewhat to your own pain and hindrance’ (sig. Bviiiv, ed. 95).1 Conceding that ‘evil opinions and naughty persuasions’ often dominate the hearts of rulers, he claims, ‘for this cause you must not leave and forsake the commonwealth: you must not forsake the ship in a tempest because you cannot rule and keep down the winds’ (sig. Fvir, ed. 122). Wise men, More argues, should serve and advise rulers cautiously but diligently, aiming to bring about what public good they can indirectly, mainly in the form of curbing vicious actions and policies. Hythloday, however, responds that such a counsellor cannot provide for the common good. He claims that most kings and princes pursue warfare for glory and for expanding their dominions at the expense of domestic stability (sig. Bviiiv–Cir, ed. 96), and many will ‘sooner pervert a good man than be made good themselves’ (sig. Fviiir, ed. 123). Alluding to Plato’s Republic (sig. Fviiir, ed. 123), Hythloday argues that the man of contemplative virtue should not weather the political tempest but rather withdraw to the shelter of his contemplation; for, as long as private possessions remain fundamental to a society, there can be no just government (Fviiir–Gijv, ed. 123–5).2

Άρμόζειν καί διαλλάσσειν: établir l'harmonie, régler la concorde. Privilèges et droits de la royauté au IVe siècle av. J.-C.

In the rhetorical context of Plutarch, De Alexandri fortuna 6 = Mor. 329 A-C the representation of the king as ἀρμόστής and διαλλακτής presupposes the oecumenical ideas developing into a vision of universal ὀμὀνοια and an image of ideal king in the philosophical tradition of Hellenism. However it should be placed at the convergence oftwo separate intellectual paths going back to rhetoric and sophistic between the end of the 5th and the 4th centuries B. C. According to the rhetoric, the action of ἀρμόζειν and διαλλάσσειν fits into the attributes expressing the royal philanthropy. In some milieux of the sophistic, the brotherhood and unity of mankind without distinction between Greeks and Barbarians were predicated as a part of a set of ideas challenging the democratic polis and its laws.

Tongue-tied and Taunted: Paul, Poor Rhetoric and Paltry Leadership in 2 Corinthians 5.13

There has been wide speculation regarding the meaning of two Greek words in 2 Cor. 5.13: ἐξίστημι and σωφρονέω. Interpreters of this verse have struggled to assess these terms in their literary and historical contexts. While the majority of commentators view these terms as referring to Paul’s ecstatic experiences, others have interpreted the verse as referring to Paul’s erratic behavior. A third group of scholars have tried to demonstrate that Paul is in fact responding to accusations that he lacked rhetorical sophistication. Building on the work of scholars belonging to the third category, I propose in this article that Paul is not only being accused of poor rhetorical skills, he is also being accused of all the connotations of a weak and inarticulate leader. By examining ἐξίστημι and σωφρονέω in their rhetorical contexts I will demonstrate that these two terms are often used in descriptions of ineffectual and unqualified civic leaders. Thus, Paul has been accused of lacking all the necessary qualities of a successful leader in the ancient world.

From Authorship to Authoring: Critical Literacy, Expert Users, and Proprietary Software

Abstract This essay argues that new authoring environments fundamentally change the authorship paradigm. Four kinds of critical literacy may be useful to produce computational media that responds appropriately to the larger rhetorical context of software culture. These critical literacies include not only writing code, but also learning a range of user interfaces, participating in design practices for debugging programs, and recognizing the norms of digital labor workflows and systems of credit.

Agribusiness, the family farm, and the politics of technological determinism in the post-World War II United States.

This historical political etymology of the term agribusiness (coined in 1955 by John H. Davis) traces the rise of a significant keyword in post–World War II American discourse. Contentious U.S. domestic farm politics of the 1950s shaped the discourse on agriculture and technology, producing a rhetorical context for Republican attacks on New Deal–era farm programs. This political climate produced new meanings for another relatively recent term, family farm —a phrase taken up by Democrats in the 1950s seeking to continue government oversight of the agricultural economy. Furthermore, technological determinism in American cold war political culture endowed agribusiness with lasting discursive power that signified—and too often justified—the seeming inevitability of a consumer-driven, technologically determined, corporate capitalist logic of food production and distribution.

Genre and second-language academic writing

The term ‘genre’ first came into the field of second-language (L2) writing and, in turn, the field of English for specific purposes (ESP) in the 1980s, with the research of John Swales, first carried out in the UK, into the introduction section of research articles. Other important figures in this area are Tony Dudley-Evans, Ann Johns and Ken Hyland, who have argued for the value of genre in the teaching of L2 academic writing. ESP genre analysis is a development of text linguistics and the description of academic genres, moving from a focus on lexicogrammatical features to rhetorical moves and, later, to a focus on rhetorical context (see Swales 2001 for a review). Systemic functional genre analysis (typically called the ‘Sydney school’) is a development of research such as that of Longacre (1976) and Labov & Waletzky (1967) and their analyses of the discourse structures of texts. Jim Martin and Joan Rothery are two important figures in the early development of systemic functional genre analysis; their work became the basis for the Disadvantaged Schools Project in Sydney (see Rose & Martin 2012 for a history). As an approach to the teaching of writing, genre-based pedagogy came into prominence in the US, in part as a response to process writing, which, it was felt, did not realistically prepare students for the demands of writing in academic contexts (Horowitz 1986). Genre-based pedagogy in Australia has a similar history and was a reaction to whole language and process writing, which were dominant in the teaching of writing in Australian schools at the time.

Charismatic Leadership and Rhetorical Competence

One of the primary ways leaders influence others is through their rhetoric. Despite the clear link between charismatic leadership and rhetorical competence, empirical studies of this link in the management field remain sparse. We thus do not have a clear sense of the nature of the rhetoric of charismatic leaders and whether or how they alter their rhetoric in different situations. We conduct an in-depth case study of the rhetoric of the late Steve Jobs, an acknowledged charismatic leader, to expand our understanding of the fundamental link between charismatic leadership and rhetorical competence. We found not only an integration of customization to different audiences and situations but also continuity in central themes in different rhetorical contexts, which may be a key attribute of the competence of charismatic leaders. We also find that customized rhetorical strategies are influenced by the leader’s perceived ethos (credibility) in the respective situations, which in turn influences the extent of logos (appeal to logic) and pathos (appeal to emotions) employed.

Librarians, Renounce the Research Paper! Using Rhetoric to Improve Assignment Design

The general research paper, despite its prevalence in higher education, has had limited success in the classroom for decades. Although academic librarians recognize the value of source-based writing and have continually partnered with faculty on this type of assignment, we are equally aware of the inherent limitations and difficulties of this traditional writing requirement. This column argues for an alternative vision to the general research paper, one that embraces a rhetorical context and offers academic librarians a more prominent role in assignment design on their campuses.

Kamalaśīla on the Nature of Phenomenal Content (ākāra) in Cognition: A Close Reading of TSP ad TS 3626 and Related Passages

Traditional as well as contemporary interpreters of Indian Yogācāra divide that tradition into a variety of doxographical camps depending on whether awareness is understood tobe endowed with phenomenal content (ākāra) and, if so, whether that content is understood to be real or true. Kamalaśīla’s extensive commentary on his teacher Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha contains passages that throw into question certain doxographical equivalencies, especially the equivalencies sometimes proposed betweenthe doctrine that awareness is endowed with phenomenal content (sākāravāda) and the doctrine that such content is true or real (satyākāravāda) and between the doctrine that awareness is devoid of phenomenal content (nirākāravāda) and the doctrine that such content is false or unreal (alīkākāravāda). Further, in accord with his broadly rhetorical approach to the application of reason, Kamalaśīla is seen in this commentary to endorse a range of seemingly contradictory positions vis-a-vis ākāra. This article argues that this situation can be explained by way of reference to Kamalaśīla’s larger philosophical and soteriological program as a Mādhyamika thinker, a program not made explicit in the text yet nonetheless present in nascent form. That is, while various theories of awareness as endowed or not endowed with phenomenal content are useful in different rhetorical contexts as well as at different stages of philosophical analysis, at the end of the day such distinctions are moot since neither awareness nor its content is upheld as ultimately real. Instead, soteriologically efficacious phenomenal content is said to be like a “true dream” (satyasvapna), an illusion that satisfies only for as long as it remains unanalyzed.

Katrin Ettenhuber Donne’s Augustine: Renaissance Cultures of InterpretationDonne’s Augustine: Renaissance Cultures of Interpretation. Katrin Ettenhuber. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. xii+267.

<i>Katrin Ettenhuber</i> Donne’s Augustine: Renaissance Cultures of Interpretation<i>Donne’s Augustine: Renaissance Cultures of Interpretation</i>. Katrin Ettenhuber. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. xii+267.

Gender, Material Chronotopes, and the Emergence of the Eighteenth-Century Microscope

This essay expands on previous feminist rhetorical scholarship to account for the ways that material, spatial, and temporal rhetorics operate together to enable gender performances and relations. Extending M.M. Bakhtin's concept of the literary chronotope, we offer the concept of the “material chronotope” to examine how routinized engagements with material objects, such as emerging technologies, and their surrounding material–rhetorical contexts facilitate particular embodied performances of gender. Drawing from the example of the eighteenth-century microscope, we demonstrate how three coexisting designs—the pocket microscope, the solar microscope, and the standard microscope—each positioned women users differently in time and space, facilitating different relationships to science, nature, and femininity. Whereas previous scholarship has emphasized the extent to which new technologies are incorporated into existing social institutions, becoming complicit in the maintenance of gender dichotomies, we draw from this example to argue that these boundaries are not simply maintained but constantly under renegotiation.

Writing Woodstock: The Prehistory of Richard II and Shakespeare’s Dramatic Method

Writing Woodstock: The Prehistory of <i>Richard II</i> and Shakespeare’s Dramatic Method

Understanding the Preamble as a Rhetorical Context for Political Action

AbstractAndrew Cline of Missouri State University crosses a number of disciplinary boundaries, especially rhetorical analysis and political science. Dr. Cline examines the Constitution of the United States and discusses the need to address poverty by concentrating upon the Constitution's meaning for contemporary society.

Editor's Letter

Editor-in-Chief Max J. Skidmore discusses Volume 5, Issue 3, of Poverty and Public Policy, the third quarterly issue of 2013. It is a pleasure to bring to you Volume 5, Issue 3, of Poverty and Public Policy. The journal now has passed the halfway mark of its fifth volume, and continues to attract favorable commentary worldwide. This issue's lead article is by Sharon S. Van Zandt and Pratik C. Mhatre, both of Texas A&M University. They write on “The Effect of Housing Choice Voucher Households on Neighborhood Crime” and study longitudinal evidence from Dallas, Texas. Their conclusion is important: Voucher holders are not the cause of increases in crime. Next, from the International University for Graduate Studies, Bassaterre, St. Kitts, comes Robert Adolf's article, “Economic Globalization, Inequality, Social Safety Nets, and the Size and Scope of Government in East and Southeast Asia,” which calls into question the conventional wisdom regarding the relationship between open economies and their relationships to social safety nets as well as governmental size and power. Next, as a feature article, is my own “‘Bipartisanship’ as a Detriment to Anti-Poverty Efforts: Some Contrarian Comments,” in which I examine the manner in which the notions of “centrism” and bipartisanship have been warped to serve the purposes of those hostile to social programs. This is one of two articles remaining from those that originated as papers that were to have been presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in New Orleans (the meeting was cancelled due to the threat from Hurricane Isaac; the other papers may be found in earlier issues of Volume 5). The Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy Caucus's panel on Poverty and Public Policy, and the Policy Studies Organization's panel on Promoting the General Welfare were the relevant panels. As indicated in the previous issues of Volume 5, papers from these panels would have been considered for the journal in any event, but the cancellation of the conference made it more important that they be considered for publication. Although our normal process had to be modified somewhat, we were careful to ensure that those selected for publication were subjected to an obligatory and rigorous peer review. The final one of the papers from the aborted APSA meeting follows next as another feature article. It is by Andrew Cline of Missouri State University, who crosses a number of disciplinary boundaries, especially rhetorical analysis and political science. Dr. Cline examines the Constitution of the United States in “Understanding the Preamble as a Rhetorical Context for Political Action.” He discusses the need to address poverty by concentrating upon the Constitution's meaning for contemporary society. Our review section in this issue is a rich one. It contains a review essay and two important reviews. In the essay, “Social Security and Its Discontents,” I include a review of a remarkable, and remarkably comprehensive, new book, Eric Laursen's The People's Pension. Rika L. Peterson of the University of South Dakota reviews The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. Finally, Afia B. Yamoah of Hope College reviews Fighting Poverty Together: Rethinking Strategies for Business, Governments, and Civil Society to Reduce Poverty by Aneel Karnani. As always, we seek thoughtful reviews of relevant books, and invite those who are interested in becoming reviewers to communicate with our Book Review Editor, Dr. Virginia Beard, at beard@hope.edu. Max J. Skidmore Editor-in-Chief University of Missouri–Kansas City

Audiobiography: A Sonic Memoir of the 1960s

This essay and its accompanying sound file speak to a personal narrative of the author's life in the 1960s, a time of tremendous social, political, and cultural change. By creating a narrative of his life at the time, sampled from period radio and television reports/programs, the author attempts to recreate the rhetorical context of his life at that time. The desired end result is a personal narrative with a broader appeal. Not a typical radio documentary, however, nor a narrated history, the intent of Sounds of My Life: A sixties radio narrative is instead to remix the medium of its original telling, empowering listeners to combine the sounds heard with the recollection of their own lived / related experience to create a meaningful, immersive personal rhetorical experience.

Getting to the Truth: The “Wandering” Metaphor of Mistakenness in Roman Culture

Getting to the Truth: The “Wandering” Metaphor of Mistakenness in Roman Culture W. M. SHORT Every metaphor is the tip of a submerged model. —M. Black, “More About Metaphor,” 1979 Eve Sweetser’s study of English lie argues that the meaning of this word depends on a “folk theory” of discourse —closely resembling the Gricean “cooperative principle ”—in which the normal expectation is that a “speaker’s saying something entails the truth of the thing said.”1 Under this theory, a prototypical lie is defined as an intentionally false statement—that is, a statement the speaker knows to be untrue and which is meant to be deceptive—with less clearcut cases (compliments out of politeness, fictions or jokes for entertainment, “white” lies) occurring when the statement’s truth value is beside the point.2 A mistake is instead the case in which someone believes but does not know the truth value of a statement, and speaks or acts on these grounds.3 At a more basic level English speakers’ conventional understanding of truth—and hence also of mistakenness—also presupposes a figurative understanding of language and thought that corresponds to what Michael Reddy called the “conduit ” metaphor.4 In this metaphor, which has predominated in English speakers’ conception at least since the Industrial Revolution in Britain,5 words are imagined as “containers” for the ideas (propositions) they express. The “truth” is thus a correspondence of (verbally expressed) propositions to real-world states of affairs, and a mis-take the failure to metaphorically “get” or “obtain” or “extract” the propositional content that fits a state of affairs existing in the world.6 arion 21.2 fall 2013 “Making a mistake” is also a metaphor in Greek and Latin. Indeed, evidence suggests that Greek and Latin speakers understood mistakenness, as an aspect of thought and action, more or less entirely metaphorically, through a network of images that worked together to characterize this concept in definite ways. In this paper, I focus on the concept of mistakenness in Latin that is delivered metaphorically by erro and its derivatives, which literally denote “wandering from a path,” as when traveling on a journey. As Latin speakers’ most conventionalized metaphorical understanding of mistakenness, this can be compared to the conceptualization captured in Greek by words—in particular forms of ἁμαρτάνω and its derivatives—referring literally to “missing a target,” as when throwing a spear or shooting an arrow . I argue that although these metaphors are comparable in sharing what is probably the same “image-schematic” basis , the difference between them—that Greek and Latin rely on images drawn from quite different domains to capture the same concept—unfolds, however, at a “cultural” level.7 Specifically, I suggest that whereas elaboration of the Greek metaphor tends to be limited to expert philosophical and rhetorical contexts, the Latin metaphor functions as a “covert model” or “hidden ideology” that implicitly guides getting to the truth 140 ܼȝĮȡIJȐȞȦ ʌȜĮȞȐȦ ʌĮȡȩȡĮȝĮ ܻȕȜȑʌIJȘȝĮ ܻȜȩȖȘȝĮ ıij‫ޠ‬ȜȜȦ ʌIJĮȓȦ !"#$$#% ܼȝĮȡ ĮȡIJȐȞȦ ܼ ʌIJĮȓȦ ȓȦ ıij‫ޠ‬ȜȜȦ ʌȜ ʌȜĮȞ ܼȝĮȡ ĮȡIJȐȞȦ ܼ ȞȐȦ ܻȜȩȖȘȝ ȘȝĮ ܻ ܻȕ ܻȕȜ ȕȜȑʌIJȘȝ ȘȝĮ ʌĮȡ Įȡȩȡ ȩȡĮȝ ĮȝĮ % ! !"#$$# Latin speakers’ reasoning and attitudes towards—and thus behaviors and practices in respect of—making mistakes in diverse contexts of social practice. 1. METAPHORS OF MISTAKENNESS IN GREEK AND LATIN as the contemporary theory of metaphor in cognitive linguistics has shown, abstract concepts are represented in understanding metaphorically.8 Cognitive linguists typically argue that the clustering of metaphorical linguistic expressions around many difficult-to-comprehend, mostly abstract concepts reflects inherently metaphorical understandings that speakers of a given language possess of those concepts. Speakers of that language talk about certain domains of experience metaphorically, that is, because they actually conceive of them—unconsciously and automatically—in terms of other more concrete, more easily comprehensible experiences . Linguistic metaphors thus reflect the systematic projections or “mappings” of knowledge that occur in the conceptual system as a way of representing and reasoning about domains not directly grounded in physical experience. Highly abstract concepts, moreover, tend to be conceptualized in terms of networks of conceptual metaphors that jointly provide structure and content to those concepts: for W. M. Short 141 HUUR & '( IDOORU & SHUSHUDP GHSUDYDWXV & SHUS USHUDP I ID IDOORU U & HUUR & & GH GHS HSUDYDWXV '( example, Latin speakers conceptualized—and hence conventionally spoke about—the mind in metaphorical terms of physical interaction with and manipulation of objects (dividing , weighing, shaping, grasping); visual...

Writerly Identities in Beur Fiction and Beyond by Laura Reeck

Simenon, whose writing gravitates around the predicament of the individual; Léo Malet and André Héléna, developers of noir fiction who seek to expose the violence, corruption, and moral ambivalence of modern society; Jean-Patrick Manchette, Jean Amila, and Didier Daeninckx, writers of politically-oriented néopolars that contest established powers, interests, and ideologies; Pierre Véry, Jean Vautrin, and Pierre Siniac, authors for whom a sense of place dominates the narrative ; Hugues Pagan, Therry Jonquet, Maurice G. Dantec, and Daniel Pennac, novelists whose works illustrate the fundamental eclecticism of modern French fiction; Jean-Claude Izzo, “Le Poulpe,” and Tonino Benacquista, participants in establishing the roman noir as a youth phenomenon; and finally Fred Vargas, who integrates elements derived from magical realism into her rompols. Platten excels at pointing out the originality of the French polar by comparing it to the Anglo-Saxon detective novel. He is sensitive to the generic pliability he uses to categorize the authors and works he discusses. He is knowledgeable about a variety of critical approaches that may be used to interpret a text defined by its investigative structure. He has the gift of evoking a detective novel’s setting , characters, strategic moves, and metaphorical structures without revealing whodunit. His touch is sure when it comes to distinguishing between objects that point directly to the solution of the mystery—clues—and those that create an over-arching symbolic frame—signs—for the philosophical content of the story. Given these strengths, it matters little that the link between cause (rhetorical devices ) and effect (pleasure) is left for the reader to deduce. This volume succeeds as an invitation to read stories where, after skillful brinkmanship on the part of the author, social, cultural, or rhetorical contexts are recuperated in a final act of disclosure that brings satisfaction akin to that of indulging in forbidden fruit. Smith College (MA) Mary Ellen Birkett REECK, LAURA. Writerly Identities in Beur Fiction and Beyond. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7391-4361-2. Pp. xv + 191. $65. Through a study of Bildungsroman or romans d’apprentissage and travelogues in which the main characters navigate a social identity that is itself in flux over time, this book demonstrates how confronting identity—this shifting space often fraught with tensions—allows the characters to also say something about the authors who have created them. Reeck approaches this concept in a clear, engaging, and succinct text. Her introduction clarifies an oft-muddied literary history of Beur literature by approaching it through generational lines, and her lucid style throughout the book highlights the applications and implications of postcolonial theory on such writing. Reeck dedicates each of her six chapters to an author of ‘Beur’ or cosmopolitan identity: Azouz Begag, Farida Belghoul, Leïla Sebbar, Saïd Mohamed, Rachid Djaïdani, and Mohamed Razane. By framing the entire book in contemporary political conflicts such as the French riots in October 2005, Reeck makes an incontestable case for the continued relevance of Beur writers today, as well as for the pressing need for her study now. As she says of Razane and Qui fait la France?, “they rehabilitate committed literature in such a way as to make it relevant for its times, particularly for the French banlieues défavorisées” (xiv). In fact, each of the authors makes similar important contributions to revitalizing French literature as 1040 FRENCH REVIEW 86.5 each has had to struggle within and against identities to discover an authorial voice (xiii). Recognizing the limitations set upon Beur literature and ‘banlieue writers’ from the outset, Reeck carefully articulates her inclusion of authors of mixedrace , mixed-heritage, and second-generation ethnic minorities (13). For example, Sebbar’s identity is markedly different from the other authors addressed, but her character Shérazade struggles to express her Beur identity and finds herself writing her way through it (85). Following the common thread of journey in the Shérazade trilogy, Reeck shows that “the value of the quest replaces that of arriving at the final destination” so that the “adventure in the self” becomes the most relevant part of the “cosmopolitan conversation” (95). In turn, Reeck’s reading of Sebbar in a cosmopolitan and autofictional...

Status Disputes and Disparate Dicta

This paper explores the Demetrian-like humor rhetoric in the barbed commentary and the disparate dicta found in Luke 16:14-18. In an effort to understand the rhetorical thrust of these peculiarly placed dicta, especially the puzzling inclusion of the divorce dictum, it is important to situate the dicta within their broader Luke-Acts rhetorical context and within the concentric composition of Luke 16:1-31. Essential to the Lukan context is Jesus’ dual status, in particular his status as prophet and divine messianic king. Through the lens of humor rhetoric, we will explore how Luke uses a collection of disparate dicta in order to produce prophetic barbs and Demetrian-like punches.