Randall Fowler
Biographic Data
| ID | 4430001 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Randall Fowler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Randall |
| FAMILY NAME | Fowler |
| SIGNATURE | FOWLER R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Abilene Christian University |
| ORCID | 0009-0005-2692-0491 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Polysyndeton, Social Media, and the Contested Meanings of January 6, 2021
Adapting a Burkean approach to rhetorical tropes, this essay argues that polysyndeton comprises a significant trope shaping political communication via social media. We argue that polysyndeton reflects the cultural dynamics of liquid modernity and furnishes an organizational logic to a particular domain of human symbolic action, namely, social media. Because polysyndeton dually stresses amplification and association, grouping things that do not h…
The Dual Containment metaphor: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and linking the Cold War to the War on Terror
This essay analyzes the Dual Containment metaphor of the Clinton administration, which reconciled President Clinton’s internationalist post-Cold War rhetoric with aggressive treatment of Iraq and Iran. I argue that the Clinton administration deployed the Dual Containment metaphor to redefine these two Persian Gulf states in line with Cold War topoi of enemyship and threat, symbolically and militarily confining them so that they could not endanger…
New England Elijah: The Prophetic Rise of Senator Bernie Sanders
This article argues that Bernie Sanders operates as a prophetic figure in the mold of the prophet Elijah as recounted in 1 and 2 Kings. Specifically, it shows how Sanders and Elijah share five common elements that are central to their prophetic discourse: theatrical style, oppositional ethos, environmental apocalypticism, raising disciples, and honored legacy. In demonstrating these shared rhetorical elements, this article intervenes in arguments…
American Kairos: Washington National Cathedral and the New Civil Religion
American Kairos: Washington National Cathedral and the New Civil Religion by Richard Benjamin Crosby speaks to multiple areas within rhetorical studies, particularly for researchers interested in U.S. religion and politics, spatial rhetorics, presidential rhetoric, and kairos as a multilayered concept.Crosby is Professor of English at Brigham Young University and has published extensively on race, politics, and religion. American Kairos fits well…
Rise and Fall of the Reformer Topos? Presidents, Alliance Politics, and the Paradoxical Reinvention of Middle East Autocrats as Agents of Change
The United States and Middle East autocracies do not make for the most natural of allies. One of the most common rhetorical tactics used to defend these alliances is to portray the ruler in question as a reformer who is steering his country into alignment with American sociopolitical norms. We argue that this tactic emerged out of realist assessments of foreign policy during the Cold War. However, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's…
Taming the People: Comparing Protests and Populism in Arab and American Politics
The rise of populism has been an uncontested global reality in recent years. However, it is unclear exactly how culturally distinct populist movements imitate or mirror each other, especially given the different rhetorical, political, ideological, and cultural contexts within which they operate. This article addresses this issue by comparing recent manifestations of populism across contemporary Arab and American contexts, with a special focus on …
Failed Crusade: Afghanistan as Liberal Holy War in Presidential Discourse
This paper argues that the twenty-year U.S. war in Afghanistan can persuasively be viewed as a holy war prosecuted on behalf of American-style liberalism. To make this argument, it develops a framework for understanding holy war as an issue of communication and draws on the work of Émile Durkheim, Patrick Deneen, James K. A. Smith, and Judith Shklar to situate liberalism as a religion. It then details how U.S. presidents proclaimed and prosecuted…
Arab resistance in the diaspora: Comparing the Saudi dissident and the Egyptian whistleblower
While much research on Arab and Muslim diasporas in the West focuses on the War(s) on Terror, in this article, we explore how two particular diasporic groups, Egyptian and Saudi activists, work to shape public perceptions of the authoritarian regimes in their countries of origin. Contextualizing the efforts of these activists in the post-Arab Spring political and mediated environments, we investigate how these political exiles employ communicatio…
Reagan and Israel: Heroic Democracy in the Holy Land
While scholars have studied Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Israel from a diplomatic, strategic, or political lobbying perspective, few have examined this relationship rhetorically. I argue that despite Reagan’s private disagreements with Israel, his public rhetoric consistently depicted Israel within the mythic terms of the Cold War as a heroic democracy like the United States. Drawing on discourses of American exceptionalism, terrorism, and H…
Art of the arms deal: Reagan, Awacs, and the rhetorical presidency
During his first year in office President Reagan sought to authorize the sale of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), an advanced weapons system, to Saudi Arabia over strong congressional opposition. The Reagan administration employed a range of strategies to ensure congressional approval of the deal, including tactics of deferring and promoting and rhetorically leveraging the presidential office. By overtly breaking from Jimmy Carter…
More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower Era in the Middle East
Puritanism, Islam, and Race in Cotton Mather’s The Glory of Goodness: An Exercise in Exceptionalism
In March 1703, hundreds of New England sailors returned home after years of slavery in the Barbary States. In response, Cotton Mather authored and circulated a sermon titled The Glory of Goodness. This text, ostensibly given in celebration of the captives’ return, gave voice to an exceptionalist understanding of Puritan identity premised on foreign—notably Muslim—others. It therefore informs our understanding of early eighteenth-century colonial …
Caliphate” against the Crown: Martyrdom, Heresy, and the Rhetoric of Enemyship in the Kingdom of Jordan
The execution of captured Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in February 2015 by Daesh (or ISIS) forces generated large public outcry in Jordan and thereby presented the regime of King Abdullah II with a moment of danger. In response to this rhetorical situation, the Abdullah regime engaged in rhetorics of enemyship based on appeals to religious orthodoxy, authoritarian ideology, and apocalyptic language. By examining these texts, this essay seeks…
To Become an American: Immigrants and Americanization Campaigns of the Early Twentieth Century
More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower ERA in the Middle East
Lion’s Last Roar, Eagle’s First Flight: Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956
The Suez Crisis address, given in response to the exigencies of the Cold War, marked a dramatic shift in presidential rhetoric regarding the Middle East. In this essay I build upon Richard Gregg’s analysis of this speech by demonstrating how President Dwight Eisenhower’s rhetoric broke from previously articulated rationales for American engagement with the region and subtly proposed a new understanding of U.S. responsibility for the region that h…
Arab resistance in the diaspora: Comparing the Saudi dissident and the Egyptian whistleblower
While much research on Arab and Muslim diasporas in the West focuses on the War(s) on Terror, in this article, we explore how two particular diasporic groups, Egyptian and Saudi activists, work to shape public perceptions of the authoritarian regimes in their countries of origin. Contextualizing the efforts of these activists in the post-Arab Spring political and mediated environments, we investigate how these political exiles employ communicatio…
Lion’s Last Roar, Eagle’s First Flight: Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956
The Suez Crisis address, given in response to the exigencies of the Cold War, marked a dramatic shift in presidential rhetoric regarding the Middle East. In this essay I build upon Richard Gregg’s analysis of this speech by demonstrating how President Dwight Eisenhower’s rhetoric broke from previously articulated rationales for American engagement with the region and subtly proposed a new understanding of U.S. responsibility for the region that h…
Lion’s Last Roar, Eagle’s First Flight: Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956
The Suez Crisis address, given in response to the exigencies of the Cold War, marked a dramatic shift in presidential rhetoric regarding the Middle East. In this essay I build upon Richard Gregg’s analysis of this speech by demonstrating how President Dwight Eisenhower’s rhetoric broke from previously articulated rationales for American engagement with the region and subtly proposed a new understanding of U.S. responsibility for the region that h…
More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower Era in the Middle East
Puritanism, Islam, and Race in Cotton Mather’s The Glory of Goodness: An Exercise in Exceptionalism
In March 1703, hundreds of New England sailors returned home after years of slavery in the Barbary States. In response, Cotton Mather authored and circulated a sermon titled The Glory of Goodness. This text, ostensibly given in celebration of the captives’ return, gave voice to an exceptionalist understanding of Puritan identity premised on foreign—notably Muslim—others. It therefore informs our understanding of early eighteenth-century colonial …
Caliphate” against the Crown: Martyrdom, Heresy, and the Rhetoric of Enemyship in the Kingdom of Jordan
The execution of captured Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in February 2015 by Daesh (or ISIS) forces generated large public outcry in Jordan and thereby presented the regime of King Abdullah II with a moment of danger. In response to this rhetorical situation, the Abdullah regime engaged in rhetorics of enemyship based on appeals to religious orthodoxy, authoritarian ideology, and apocalyptic language. By examining these texts, this essay seeks…
To Become an American: Immigrants and Americanization Campaigns of the Early Twentieth Century
More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower ERA in the Middle East
Art of the arms deal: Reagan, Awacs, and the rhetorical presidency
During his first year in office President Reagan sought to authorize the sale of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), an advanced weapons system, to Saudi Arabia over strong congressional opposition. The Reagan administration employed a range of strategies to ensure congressional approval of the deal, including tactics of deferring and promoting and rhetorically leveraging the presidential office. By overtly breaking from Jimmy Carter…
Arab resistance in the diaspora: Comparing the Saudi dissident and the Egyptian whistleblower
While much research on Arab and Muslim diasporas in the West focuses on the War(s) on Terror, in this article, we explore how two particular diasporic groups, Egyptian and Saudi activists, work to shape public perceptions of the authoritarian regimes in their countries of origin. Contextualizing the efforts of these activists in the post-Arab Spring political and mediated environments, we investigate how these political exiles employ communicatio…
Reagan and Israel: Heroic Democracy in the Holy Land
While scholars have studied Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Israel from a diplomatic, strategic, or political lobbying perspective, few have examined this relationship rhetorically. I argue that despite Reagan’s private disagreements with Israel, his public rhetoric consistently depicted Israel within the mythic terms of the Cold War as a heroic democracy like the United States. Drawing on discourses of American exceptionalism, terrorism, and H…
Taming the People: Comparing Protests and Populism in Arab and American Politics
The rise of populism has been an uncontested global reality in recent years. However, it is unclear exactly how culturally distinct populist movements imitate or mirror each other, especially given the different rhetorical, political, ideological, and cultural contexts within which they operate. This article addresses this issue by comparing recent manifestations of populism across contemporary Arab and American contexts, with a special focus on …
Failed Crusade: Afghanistan as Liberal Holy War in Presidential Discourse
This paper argues that the twenty-year U.S. war in Afghanistan can persuasively be viewed as a holy war prosecuted on behalf of American-style liberalism. To make this argument, it develops a framework for understanding holy war as an issue of communication and draws on the work of Émile Durkheim, Patrick Deneen, James K. A. Smith, and Judith Shklar to situate liberalism as a religion. It then details how U.S. presidents proclaimed and prosecuted…
Rise and Fall of the Reformer Topos? Presidents, Alliance Politics, and the Paradoxical Reinvention of Middle East Autocrats as Agents of Change
The United States and Middle East autocracies do not make for the most natural of allies. One of the most common rhetorical tactics used to defend these alliances is to portray the ruler in question as a reformer who is steering his country into alignment with American sociopolitical norms. We argue that this tactic emerged out of realist assessments of foreign policy during the Cold War. However, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's…
New England Elijah: The Prophetic Rise of Senator Bernie Sanders
This article argues that Bernie Sanders operates as a prophetic figure in the mold of the prophet Elijah as recounted in 1 and 2 Kings. Specifically, it shows how Sanders and Elijah share five common elements that are central to their prophetic discourse: theatrical style, oppositional ethos, environmental apocalypticism, raising disciples, and honored legacy. In demonstrating these shared rhetorical elements, this article intervenes in arguments…
American Kairos: Washington National Cathedral and the New Civil Religion
American Kairos: Washington National Cathedral and the New Civil Religion by Richard Benjamin Crosby speaks to multiple areas within rhetorical studies, particularly for researchers interested in U.S. religion and politics, spatial rhetorics, presidential rhetoric, and kairos as a multilayered concept.Crosby is Professor of English at Brigham Young University and has published extensively on race, politics, and religion. American Kairos fits well…
Polysyndeton, Social Media, and the Contested Meanings of January 6, 2021
Adapting a Burkean approach to rhetorical tropes, this essay argues that polysyndeton comprises a significant trope shaping political communication via social media. We argue that polysyndeton reflects the cultural dynamics of liquid modernity and furnishes an organizational logic to a particular domain of human symbolic action, namely, social media. Because polysyndeton dually stresses amplification and association, grouping things that do not h…
The Dual Containment metaphor: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and linking the Cold War to the War on Terror
This essay analyzes the Dual Containment metaphor of the Clinton administration, which reconciled President Clinton’s internationalist post-Cold War rhetoric with aggressive treatment of Iraq and Iran. I argue that the Clinton administration deployed the Dual Containment metaphor to redefine these two Persian Gulf states in line with Cold War topoi of enemyship and threat, symbolically and militarily confining them so that they could not endanger…
Political science (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (6 works) · Rhetoric (6 works) · Rhetoric and Communication Studies (6 works) · Theology (6 works) · Art (5 works)