The Short History of Rhetorical Theory
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21371693 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Simonson (0000-0001-7156-467X, University of Colorado Boulder, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 75-88 |
| Publication date | 2020-02-21 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophy and Rhetoric (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8213 • E-ISSN: 1527-2079 |
| Publisher | The Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5325/philrhet.53.1.0075 |
| OpenAlex | W3005634166 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 22 |
This essay throws genealogical light upon contemporary theoretical practice by charting the relatively short history of rhetorical theory as a consequential sign in Anglophone discourse. It advances a historical sociology of knowledge inflected by feminist and postcolonial studies to trace the invention, institutionalization, and changing meanings of rhetorical theory from the late nineteenth century to the present. In the process, it illuminates three structuring patterns: (1) the valorization of European civilization that accompanied U.S. settler colonialism and its manifestation in universities where rhetorical theory materially grounded itself; (2) the gendered production of knowledge within academic institutions, particularly through the masculinization of the postwar university and its shaping of communities of inquiry invested in rhetorical theory; and (3) the power of relevance as a metonym for intellectual, political, and educational initiatives that, beginning in the late 1960s, enlarged rhetorical theory's community of inquiry and range of meanings
Civilization · Epistemology · Institutionalisation · Intellectual history · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Rhetoric · Rhetorical device · Rhetorical question · Sign (mathematics) · Social science · Sociology · TRACE (psycholinguistics) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
Provincializing Europe
The International History of Communication Study
A colonial history of the higher education present
Postcolonial Interventions in the Rhetorical Canon
Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Argumentation
Kenneth burke and the “new rhetoric”
I. A. Richards and the “new rhetoric”
Theory from the South
Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's New Rhetoric
The Indian Censures the White Man
The History of Theory
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |