Consigny – Edward Schiappa’s Reading of the Sophists

Consigny – “Edward Schiappa’s Reading of the Sophists” Consigny argues against Schiappa’s representation of the neosophistics by : 1) first discussing the epistemological assumptions, hermeneutic strategies, and resulting interpretations of the neosophistics (antifoundationalists); 2) analyzing Schiappa’s critique of the neosophists by concentrating on his own foundational reading; and 3) critiquing Schiappa’s approach by highlighting... Read More

Quendahl – Aristotle’s Rhetoric: Reinterpreting Invention

Quendahl, Ellen. “Aristotle’s Rhetoric;  Reinterpreting Invention.” Rhetoric Review 4.2 (Jan. 1986). Quendahl makes the claim early on in this piece that we must read the Rhetoric against the grain, dismissing the tradition of philosophy that has marginalized it into a philosophy of logic of argument or taxonomies of discourse; further, we must resist also reading Rhetoric as divorced from questions of language and style.  To ensure this sort... Read More

WRT627 – Wikinomics & Lingua Fracta (Ch. 3)

Lingua Fracta:  Towards a Rhetoric of New Media Collin Gifford Brooke Chapter Three:  Proairesis In this chapter Brooke hopes to demonstrate what he calls “proairetic invention” or “a focus on the generation of possibilities, rather than their elimination until all but one are gone and closure is achieved” (86). Brooke recognizes the tension between social models of invention in rhetoric and composition and the conception of the solitary... Read More