Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to critique an ideological conceptualization of rhetor as the agent of rhetorical practice. Against the backdrop of the academic controversy between the critical rhetoric and the close textual analysis, the essay will shed a critical light on Raymie McKerrow's version of the critical rhetoric from a standpoint of Michel Foucault. Enacting a critical reading of Michael Leff's understanding of rhetor (and its instrumentality) and McKerrow's (mis-)reading of Foucauldian subject, the essay discusses limits and possibilities of praxis, and problematizes the liberal humanism embedded as a doxa in both critical-rhetorical and textual-critical scholarships. The problem with the doxa of humanism is that it places rhetor as the center of rhetorical action, erroneously equating rhetorical agency, speaking subject, and human actor, while it is rhetoric itself that functions to constitute the subject. Interrogating into this problem requires a thoroughgoing assessment of the concept of agency in rhetorical practices, the limits and possibilities availed by liberalism, and the roles of critics within societies. The crucial question pertaining to contemporary rhetorical theory is how we can critique the neo-liberal ideology of the public. Departing from Hannah Arendt’s (and Habermas’) traditional notion of the public, Foucault’s analyses of power (along with Negri and Hardt) suggest a need for a new critical praxis in the neo-liberal public. The essay will eventually conclude that rhetorical practice without rhetor is in fact what Foucauldian critique should illuminate: the technological power of mediated discourse that constitutes the space of socio-cultural action.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Anchored deeply in both the empirical and theoretical literature on presidential persuasion, this paper seeks to use President George W. Bush's presidential rhetoric as support for a supplementation to Neustadt's basic model of presidential persuasion. Using qualitative exegetical analysis to establish Bush as a "non-deliberative" presidential rhetorician, the paper then shifts to empirically show that even a "non-deliberative" presidential rhetorician is still a rational rhetorician who abides by a new theory of presidential communication. This theory, "the rational electoral rhetorical" model, presumes that presidents will adjust their rhetoric in recognition of the enhanced and sustainable competition they face in the marketplace of ideas during electoral challenges. Therefore, presidents should become more deliberative in their rhetorical articulations. Despite George W. Bush's shortcomings as a deliberative rhetorician, during electoral challenges he does increase his deliberative rhetoric, thus undermining the prevailing theoretical foundation of presidential rhetoric as promoted by Tulis. This study provides a methodological apparatus to study how rhetorical strategy can illuminate other questions that presidential scholars seek to address.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the theoretical bridging of rhetoric and queer theory that the fag hag's uncertainty offers in the form of what I have termed “liminal rhetorical spaces.” I put forward a reading of Sex & the City with a focus on two key markers of traditional female identity that get blurred through its indeterminacy: the female body and the traditional (read: heterosexual) family.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Herein, I theorize what I call the "rhetoric of hope." In the process, I contrast the "rhetoric of hope" with what I have elsewhere labeled the "rhetoric of duty." As I envision it, "the rhetoric of duty" (exemplified by James Dobson) seeks reification that tends toward permanence, certainty, and finality. In distinction to such a "rhetoric of duty," I illustrate the employment of a "rhetoric of hope" by considering the theological rhetoric of Jürgen Moltmann.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This essay examines the historical antecedents of Black Nationalism. Through historical analysis of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Moorish Science Temple of America, this author seeks to chart the relevant rhetorical tactics and formal procedures which made the discourses of Marcus Garvey and the Noble Drew Ali compelling to audience members. The essay’s goal is examine contested interpretations of self, faith, and persecution articulated by the rhetoric of the MSTA and the UNIA.