Category Archives: burke

Among the Republicans

Prepping for my role as a blogger during the upcoming RNC, I read Among the Republicans by V.S. Naipaul, a reflection upon the 1984 Republican National Convention. Interesting is the extent to which Naipaul focuses on the rising New Right … Continue reading

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Education in Ruins; a War of Nerves

I’ve talked about my love for Bill Reading’s The University in Ruins on this blog before. Today I came across a disturbing news item on Facebook that made me think of Reading’s warning, a warning echoed by Mark C. Taylor … Continue reading

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Internet Metaphor

I posted a link to this NYT article to Facebook, but I wanted to keep this paragraph someplace where I could find it: Then again, the Internet is a new kind of barometer for keeping track of exactly how old … Continue reading

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Rotten With Perfection

Burke fans will probably enjoy today’s offerings from one of my favorite sites, Slaughterhouse 90210.

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Yeah, We Already Knew That

Via the Blogora today, a piece in Newsweek on evolution and irrationality. It probably shouldn’t irk me that the piece makes no mention of rhetoricians, but it does (its got philosophers and cognitive scientists, but no rhetoricians). Its clear the … Continue reading

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Burke, Sophistry, and Ecological Rhetoric

I wrote this in response to a graduate students’ project on Kenneth Burke. I didn’t want to lose it, so I’ll stick it here: Burke shares quite a bit with the Sophists because they both believe that rhetoric is metaphysical, … Continue reading

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Burke, Purpose, Rubric

Taking a break from work I have to finish, I grabbed Burke’s Grammar of Motives off the shelf. I found this great paragraph from the chapter “Agency and Purpose” challenging notions of neutral instrumentalism (that our instruments measure without purpose … Continue reading

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New Media Rhetoric and Wikipedia

I thought I would share my conference proposal for International Society for the History of Rhetoric conference. I have a feeling its probably a bit too contemporary (ie, it mentions computers) for this conference, but there’s no harm in trying. … Continue reading

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