New and Recent Books in Rhetoric

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Rhetoric Society of America Biennial Conference

We're heading to Minneapolis, May 31–June 3, for the Rhetoric Society of America biennial conference. Stop by our booth to see our newest titles, and to meet our authors!

Friday, June 1 @ 12:30pm – Book signing: Elizabeth Britt, author of Reimagining Advocacy
Friday, June 1 @ 2:00pm – Meet & Greet with Thinking Together editors Angela G. Ray and Ray Stob
Saturday, June 2 @ 12:30pm – Book signing: Amy Koerber, author of From Hysteria to Hormones

Unable to attend? Take 30% off all titles in the RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric, Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation, and related rhetoric titles online. Be sure to use code RhSA30 at checkout to claim your discount.

In the RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric:

Reimagining Advocacy

Rhetorical Education in the Legal Clinic

Elizabeth C. Britt

“Elizabeth Britt’s book shows us that lawyers are rhetorical agents, a connection that has been diminished over time. Her study of ‘embodied advocacies’ can help lawyers think more broadly about what advocacy means.”—Kirsten K. Davis, Director of the Institute for Advancement of Legal Communication, Stetson University

From Hysteria to Hormones

A Rhetorical History

Amy Koerber

“In situating the science of women’s ‘hormones’ in the deep history of ‘hysteria,’ Koerber refutes any reductive tales of linear scientific progress. From Hysteria to Hormones shows not only that ‘science moves in many directions all at once,’ but also how some of those movements produce novelty that reconstructs old ideas in order to keep them lively. Scholars interested in feminism, science studies, and rhetoric will find this a vivid, provocative, and creative analysis.”—Celeste M. Condit, author of Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change

Infertility

Tracing the History of a Transformative Term

Robin E. Jensen

Winner of the 2017 James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address from the National Communication Association; also named Outstanding Book of 2017 by the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG)

Museum Rhetoric

Building Civic Identity in National Spaces

M. Elizabeth Weiser

“M. Elizabeth Weiser crosses more national and disciplinary borders than any previous scholar in the search for unifying analyses of the identity work of museums. She investigates a wide array of material and a multidimensional set of productive dilemmas. The result is a complex, innovative, and yet clear and elegantly presented analysis of the work done by and through museums in placing their orchestrated and authorized rhetoric in dialogue with the experiences of visiting citizens.”—Peter Aronsson, coeditor of National Museums and Nation-Building in Europe, 1750-2010: Mobilization and Legitimacy, Continuity and Change

Kenneth Burke + The Posthuman

Edited by Chris Mays, Nathaniel A. Rivers, and Kellie Sharp-Hoskins

“This one-of-a-kind collection indicates that there is much to be gained by articulating the work of Kenneth Burke to contemporary debates regarding the posthuman. The received wisdom that Burke is a dyed-in-the-wool humanist, and thus antithetical to posthumanism, is challenged by this strong set of chapters by emerging and well-established scholars. In short, this is not a surface-level engagement but a very serious attempt to rethink both Burke’s concepts and posthumanism through this unexpected encounter.”—Bryan Crable, author of Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke: At the Roots of the Racial Divide

Rhetoric’s Pragmatism

Essays in Rhetorical Hermeneutics

Steven Mailloux

“This book participates in multiple disciplinary conversations as few books do. Steven Mailloux doesn’t even try to be transdisciplinary—after all his years of study and scholarship, it has become natural to him. Thus, while Rhetoric’s Pragmatism will especially appeal to the rhetoric community, it will also be required reading for historians, educators, theologians, scholars in American literature and culture, cultural studies scholars, and the host of scholars in the humanities who want to understand how a refined and expansive project can draw from and influence so many.”—Jack Selzer, author of Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village

In the Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation Series:

Speech and Debate as Civic Education

Edited by J. Michael Hogan, Jessica A. Kurr, Michael J. Bergmaier, and Jeremy D. Johnson

“An outstanding volume. Both wide-ranging and deep, Speech and Debate as Civic Education enlarges our understanding of intercollegiate debate by framing it in a historical context as well as by exploring its philosophical, ethical, and political possibilities. The essays consistently thematize gender, race, and culture, and together they paint a persuasive picture of why debate matters to education, and therefore to democracy. Anyone who cares about the role of rhetoric and argument in a deliberative democracy should own this book.”—William Keith, author of Democracy as Discussion: Civic Education and the American Forum Movement

Memories of Lincoln and the Splintering of American Political Thought

Shawn J. Parry-Giles, and David S. Kaufer

"This book is a welcome contribution to the literature on Abraham Lincoln’s public memory. It establishes a historical ground that scholars can use for future studies, and offers a distinctive contribution by framing its interpretations within the broader horizon of the tension between republicanism and democratic populism. It is ambitious in its scope and conclusion.”—Kirt H. Wilson, author of The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate: The Politics of Equality and the Rhetoric of Place, 1870–1875

Thinking Together

Lecturing, Learning, and Difference in the Long Nineteenth Century

Edited by Angela G. Ray and Paul Stob

“Thinking Together explores popular learning in the United States during the long nineteenth century through case studies of a broad multiplicity of lyceum speakers. Maintaining the particularity of each case, the volume vividly illustrates how distinct racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups and individuals not only educated themselves but also constructed a sense of belonging while forging spiritual and political communities.”—Susan Zaeske, author of Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women's Political Identity

Also of Interest:

Text + Field

Innovations in Rhetorical Method

Edited by Sara L. McKinnon, Robert Asen, Karma R. Chávez, and Robert Glenn Howard

“Text + Field productively emphasizes the praxis of methodology, augmenting and amplifying the innovative possibilities available to students and scholars researching the rhetoric of everyday life. The collection advocates methods that are ethically responsive as well as intellectually insightful, looking to embodied approaches such as interviewing, critical ethnography, participant-observation, and personal narrative.”—Jeffrey Bennett, Vanderbilt University

Sent in cooperation with the Rhetoric Society of America

Members of the Rhetoric Society of America are always eligible to receive a 30% discount on any PSU Press title in rhetoric and communication studies. Simply enter code RhSA30 at checkout.