Blogora Classic: A 20th Century Theory Canon, November 05, 2004

November 05, 2004

A 20th Century Theory Canon

I'm doing my book orders for spring. I'm teaching a seminar on 20th century rhetorical theory. As usual, I can't decide whether to go for depth or breadth. The last time I taught it I used an extended case study of the Salem witchcraft trials as a basis for applying/comparing different theories, and then divided the course into what I consider to be the 3 main trajectories of 20th century rhetorical theory: argument (Perelman, Toulmin), dramatism (Burke), and power/knowledge (Foucault). That seemed to work all right, although it left out what I personally find to be the richest recent work: rhetoric of science (Gross), politics (Hariman's Political Style), law (James Boyd White), and economics (Deirdre McCloskey).

So I thought I'd pose a desert-island question for the readers of Blogora. If you had to list the 10 most important works in rhetorical theory of the 20th century, what would they be?

My list:

Kenneth Burke, A Grammar and Rhetoric of Motives
Richard Weaver, Visions of Order and The Ethics of Rhetoric
Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric
Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert Hariman, Political Style
Thomas B. Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture
James Crosswhite, The Rhetoric of Reason
Deirdre McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics
James Boyd White, When Words Lose Their Meanings
Alan Gross, The Rhetoric of Science

(I will add that I am not including the work of theorists who have been important for theorizing rhetoric, e.g. Foucault or Althusser, who simply did not write with any awareness of the rhetorical problematic.)

Posted by jim at November 5, 2004 09:53 PM

I'm not sure what my exact list would be....but my first reaction, jim, is: where are the women and the queers and the thinkers of color...and embarrassed etc? Let's spice it up a bit! I'll start--but it's just a start:

Imho, Avital Ronell's "Support Our Tropes" is one of the most important rhetorical theory texts of the last few decades--it analyzes the first Bush presidency and the rhetoric of the gulf war by exposing and explicating what she calls the rhetorical unconscious.

I'd also add Judith Butler's _Excitable Speech_ to the list, inasmuch as it extends and critiques and applies certain aspects of speech act theory.

Both of these theorists are also rhetoricians, accutely aware of "the rhetorical problematic" and critically engaged with pressing social issues.

Posted by: ddd at November 7, 2004 06:33 AM

This is very helpful. I'm not trying to start any canon wars, please remember, but simply trying to figure out, given the limited attention-space of a seminar, what resources give students the best starting point.

Posted by: Jim at November 7, 2004 06:47 PM