1st Edition
Rhetorical Realism Rhetoric, Ethics, and the Ontology of Things
Introduction: Into The Well
1. Reclaiming Rhetorical Realism
2. Aristotle’s Rhetorical Realism: Technē, Phusis, and Logos
3. Speaking with Things: Early Modern Rhetoric and the Dream of a Common Language
4. The Question Concerning Reality: Post-Kantian Rhetorical Realism
5. Care for Things: Ethics and Responsibility in the World of Things
Biography
Scot Barnett is Assistant Professor of English at Indiana University-Bloomington, USA where he teaches courses in rhetorical theory and digital rhetoric. With Casey Boyle, he is the editor of Rhetoric, Through Everyday Things (2016). His work has also appeared in the journals Enculturation, Kairos, and Itineration as well as in several edited collections.
"In the same vein as Thomas Rickert’s Ambient Rhetoric, Barnett offers some of the most original and compelling research to date with respect to rhetoric’s growing interest in nonhuman agency, posthumanism, and material rhetorics. I can see many audiences in rhetorical studies being intrigued with his creative idea to revisit and recast entirely a debate (realism/anti-realism) that our field (falsely) believed to be settled decades ago. In turn, Barnett’s realist approach to rhetorical historiography promises to call into question some of the most well entrenched epistemic and human centered foundations that continue to undergird a great deal of twentieth- and twenty-first century rhetorical theory. For this reason, his research will foster some much needed engagement by rhetoricians regarding Bruno Latour’s basic question to many of our field’s prevailing theoretical interests in postmodernism and poststructuralism: ‘Do you believe in reality?’ " - Steve Holmes, George Mason University, USA
