The Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory Series aims to extend the subject of rhetoric beyond its traditional and historical bounds and thus to elaborate rhetoric's significance as a metaperspective in provocative ways. Rhetoric has become an epistemology in its own right, one marked by heightened consciousness of the symbolic act as always already contextual and ideological. Otherwise known as the rhetorical turn, this dialectic between rhetoric and philosophy may lead to views transcending the limits of each, and thus help us better understand the ethical problems and possibilities of producing theory.

The Series publishes quality scholarly works that examine the significance of rhetorical theory in philosophical, historical, cultural, and disciplinary contexts. Such works will typically bring rhetorical theory to bear on the theoretical statements that enfranchise disciplinary paradigms and practice across the human sciences, with emphasis on the fields of rhetoric, composition, philosophy, and critical theory. 

The series is not presently accepting new submissions, but may again soon. Queries should be directed to David Blakesley, Editor, Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory, Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.

For more information, visit Southern Illinois University Press's website.

Where Writing Begins
A Postmodern Reconstruction

Michael Carter
October 2003
cloth, 0-8093-2520-9, $55.00
320 pages, 6 x 9

Where Writing Begins: A Postmodern Reconstruction is an innovative approach to the postmodern dilemma in rhetoric and composition that offers a positive and postmodern pedagogy that redefines and revalues writing and the teaching of writing through reconstructive, postmodern thought. The result is a fresh understanding of both the field of composition and writing instruction.

Writing Genres

Amy J. Devitt
February 2004
cloth, 0-8093-2553-5, $55.00
224 pages, 6 x 9

“Writing Genres presents an excellent, comprehensive discussion of contemporary genre theory as it has developed in the field of composition and writing over the past twenty years. The scholarship here is well informed and wide-ranging, drawing on historical linguistics and sociolinguistics, literary theory and history, composition studies, rhetorical studies, and cultural studies, and in its breadth it is excellent.”

—Carolyn R. Miller
North Carolina State University

Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric

Bruce McComiskey
January 2002; ISBN 0-8093-2397-4; 144 pages

“Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric treats some old texts in interesting and productive ways, it covers most of the important prior scholarship with a useful and constructive view, and it foregrounds its own theoretical matrix without getting lost in the process of foregrounding. . . . McComiskey's explanation of historical and rational reconstruction offers a good vocabulary, and his analogy of a continuum serves well; it is the sort of analogy that usually grows out of the best teaching.”

—Jasper Neel, author of Aristotle's Voice: Rhetoric, Theory, and Writing in America and Plato, Derrida, and Writing

Defining Reality: Definitions and the Politics of Meaning

Edward Schiappa
May 2003; ISBN 0-8093-2501-2 (paper)
0-8093-2500-4 (cloth); 224 pages

In Defining Reality, Edward Schiappa argues that definitional disputes should be treated less as philosophical questions of “is” and more as sociopolitical questions of “ought.” Instead of asking “What is X?” he advocates that definitions be considered as proposals for shared knowledge and institutional norms, as in “What should count as X in context Y, given our needs and interests?”

Rhetoric on the Margins of Modernity: Vico, Condillac, Monboddo

Catherine L. Hobbs
November 2002; paper, 0-8093-2469-5; 192 pages

“Rhetoric on the Margins of Modernity: Vico, Condillac, Monboddo enriches our understanding of the pivotal period when rhetoric became modern. Hobbs expands histories of our field to focus on figures who have been positioned as marginal in traditional accounts of how rhetoric was redefined by the logic of the sciences and the modern restriction of literature to nonfactual nonutilitiarian discourse. By including figures who call these broader categories into question, Hobb's arguments shift the frame of reference for the transition from classical to modern rhetoric beyond the usual suspects—Campbell, Blair, Smith, and Sheridan. This broader perspective offers new insights into the interdisciplinary trends that are currently redefining the field of contemporary literacy studies.”

—Thomas P. Miller, author of The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces

Unending Conversations: New Writings by and about Kenneth Burke

Edited by Greig Henderson and David Cratis Williams
March 2001; 272 pages | 6 x 9; ISBN 0-8093-2353-2, $27.00 paper; ISBN 0-8093-2352-4, $50.00 cloth

Previously unpublished writings by and about Kenneth Burke plus essays by such Burkean luminaries as Wayne C. Booth, William H. Rueckert, Robert Wess, Thomas Carmichael, and Michael Feehan make the publication of Unending Conversations a significant event in the field of Burke studies and in the wider field of literary criticism and theory.

Editors Greig Henderson and David Cratis Williams have divided their material into three parts: “Dialectics of Expression, Communication, and Transcendence,” “Criticism, Symbolicity, and Tropology,” and “Transcendence and the Theological Motive.”

Rhetoric as Philosophy: The Humanist Tradition

(Spring 2001; Reprint, with a new introduction by Timothy W. Crusius; 144 pages | 6 x 9; ISBN 0-8093-2363-X, $27.00 paper

By Ernesto Grassi

“Rhetoric as Philosophy is a surprisingly refreshing examination of the history and significance of the Italian humanistic tradition. . . . In an atmosphere which is heavy with technical and formal languages, this suitably elegant account of another tradition is timely and ecumenical.”

—Radical Philosophy

“The cogency of argument, the wealth of detail in so brief a volume, and the attention to some long-forgotten humanist texts make Rhetoric as Philosophy important reading for those who care about the role of language in human affairs.”

—Quarterly Journal of Speech

Breaking Up [at] Totality: A Rhetoric of Laughter (2000)

ISBN 0-8093-2229-3, $27.00 paper; ISBN 0-8093-2228-5, $45.00 cloth; 320 pages | 6 x 9

By D. Diane Davis

“D. Diane Davis has written a performative book at the end of the old and the beginning of the new millennium. It's a transitional, yet disruptive book about thinking-writing, theorizing(seeing)-writing, and learning(teaching)- writing. It's a book that hacks into and recodes the cultures of writing by perpetually deterritorializing writing theories and pedagogies. If you read no other book in the next millennium, you must read this book! For if you do not, you will remain in whatever previous century you last thought in and by way of.”

—Victor J. Vitanza, editor of
Writing Histories of Rhetoric

Kenneth Burke and the Conversation After Philosophy

April 1999
ISBN 0-8093-2207-2, $27.00 paper; ISBN 0-8093-2206-4, $50.00 cloth
256 pages

By Timothy W. Crusius

Tim Crusius was the subject of a PRE/TEXT "Reinvw" (ReInterView) on the P-T list online in November, 1999. To review the discussion, visit the PRE/TEXT website.

"I found myself consistently enlightened by Crusius's discussions. By locating Burke's concerns within philosophical thought, Crusius takes us to the heart of Burke's project and contributes mightily to the resolution of many Burkean problems. By taking a philosophical approach, Crusius is able to claim substantial new territory. This study is impressive, original, and important."

—Jack Selzer, author of
Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village: Conversing with the Moderns, 1915-1931