Bringing together 50 key readings on rhetorical criticism in a single accessible format, The Rhetorical Criticism Reader furnishes instructors with an ideal resource for teaching and practicing the art of rhetorical criticism. Unlike existing readers and textbooks, which rely on cookie-cutter approaches to rhetorical criticism, The Rhetorical Criticism Reader organizes the field conceptually, allowing teachers and students to grapple with the enduring issues and debates surrounding criticism over the past 50 years. The readings are organized into four sections, each representing key conceptual issues and debates in rhetorical criticism: critic/purpose, object/method, theory/practice, and audience/consequentiality. Each section is preceded by an introductory essay that puts the readings into context. For added flexibility, an alternative table of contents is also included for instructors and students to customize their teaching and reading. Intended for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetorical criticism, The Rhetorical Criticism Reader uniquely lends itself to thoughtful discussion of the role of the critic in the critical process. It assists readers not only in learning the tools of criticism, but also in reflecting on the values that underlie the critical endeavor.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Critic/Purpose Must We All Be ‘Rhetorical Critics’? Barnet Baskerville Criticism Ephemeral and Enduring, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell Another Shooting in Cowtown, Thomas W. Benson Rhetoric, Society and the Critical Response, Philip Wander and Steven Jenkins Rhetorical Criticism as Moral Action, James F. Klumpp and Thomas A. Hollihan Communication, Social Justice, and Joyful Commitment, Stephen John Hartnett Leff in Context: What is a Critic’s Role? Barbara Warnick The Critic as Empath: Moving Away from Totalizing Theory, Celeste Michelle Condit Criticism and Authority in the Artistic Mode, Bonnie J. Dow Rethinking Critical Voice: Materiality and Situated Knowledges, Julia T. Wood and Robert Cox "Voice" and "Voicelessness" in Rhetorical Studies, Eric King Watts Performing Critical Interruptions: Stories, Rhetorical Inventions, and Environmental Justice Movement, Phaedra C. Pezzullo Part II: Object/Method Gettsyburg and Silence, Edwin Black Words the Most Like Things: Iconicity and the Rhetorical Text, Michael Leff and Andrew Sachs Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture, Michael Calvin McGee Object and Method in Rhetorical Criticism: From Wichelns to Leff and McGee, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar Literature as Equipment for Living, Kenneth Burke Accidental Rhetoric: The Root Metaphors of Three Mile Island, Thomas B. Farrell and G. Thomas Goodnight Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality, Ernest G. Bormann Refitting Fantasy: Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity, and Talking to the Dead, Joshua Gunn The Rhetoric of the American Western Myth, Janice Hocker Rushing Spaces of Remembering and Forgetting: The Reverent Eye/I at the Plains Indian Museum, Greg Dickinson, Brian L. Ott, and Eric Aoki Memory and Reconciliation at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Victoria J. Gallagher Show/Down Time: "Race," Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture, Thomas K. Nakayama From Public Sphere to Public Screen: Democracy, Activisim, and the "Violence" of Seattle, Kevin Michael DeLuca and Jennifer Peeples Part III: Theory/Practice On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic, Robert Scott Rhetoric as a Way of Being, Thomas W. Benson Critical Models in the Analysis of Discourse, Thomas B. Farrell Knowledge Claims in Rhetorical Criticism, David Zarefsky Rhetorical Theory as Heuristic and Moral: A Pedagogical Justification, Barry Brummett Constitutive Rhetoric: The Case of the Peuple Québécois, Maurice Charland Critical Rhetoric: Theory and Praxis, Raymie E. McKerrow The Critique of Vernacular Discourse, Kent A. Ono and John M. Sloop The Materiality of Discourse as Oxymoron: A Challenge to Critical Rhetoric, Dana L. Cloud Another Materialist Rhetoric, Ronald Walter Greene Nietzsche and the Aesthetics of Rhetoric, Steve Whitson and John Poulakos Cinema and Choric Connection: Lost in Translation as Sensual Experience, Brian L. Ott and Diane Keeling Part IV: Audience/Consequentiality The Second Persona, Edwin Black The Third Persona: An Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Theory, Philip C. Wander Contextual Twilight/Critical Liminality: J.M Barrie’s Courage at St. Andrews, 1922, Charles E. Morris III The Rhetorical Limits of Polysemy, Celeste Michelle Condit Polysemy: Multiple Meanings in Rhetorical Criticism, Leah Ceccareli The Spectacular Consumption of "True" African America Culture: "Wassup" with the Budweiser Guys? Eric King Watts and Mark P. Orbe Vernacular Dialogue and the Rhetoricality of Public Opinion, Gerard A. Hauser Out-Law Discourse: The Critical Politics of Material Judgment, John M. Sloop and Kent A. Ono Enacting Red Power: The Consummatory Function in Native American Protest Rhetoric, Randall Lake Creating Discursive Space through a Rhetoric of Difference: Chicana Feminists Craft a Homeland, Lisa A. Flores Reflections on Criticism and Bodies: Parables from Public Places, Carole Blair No Time for Mourning: The Rhetorical Production of the Melancholic Citizen-Subject in the War on Terror, Barbara Biesecker The Rhetorical Ritual of Citizenship: Women’s Voting as Public Performance, 1868-1875, Angela G. Ray