Reading Texts Rhetorically

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel explores one of the most noteworthy developments in the field of political theory over the past few decades, namely, the resurgence of interest in rhetoric among both historians of political thought and contemporary political theorists. Viewed with hostility as well as indifference throughout most of the twentieth century, interest in rhetoric has expanded and deepened exponentially, becoming integrated into discussions across a wide range of topics. Maligned virtually from the moment the word was first coined as an abstract noun in Plato’s Gorgias, rhetoric has emerged from the shadows of suspicion and disrepute to become a vital source of debate, discussion, and research. Deploying a variety of modes of textual analysis and reading practices that draw on multiple interpretive approaches, scholars have turned to rhetoric as an object and instrument of inquiry. Indeed, many scholars, working in and across diverse traditions and disciplines, have contributed to what Bryan Garsten calls the “rhetoric revival” and others term the “rhetorical turn” in political theory.
Along with its focus on a vitally important area of inquiry in the field of political theory, this panel is tightly linked to the theme of this year’s meeting, “Democracy: Retrenchment, Renovation, & Reimagination.” Discussions and disputes about the relationship between rhetoric and demos stretch back to Greek and Roman antiquity, but have also played a central role in the recent rhetorical turn in political theory, where a number of lively discussions have emerged among historians of political thought and contemporary democratic theorists alike.
This panel brings together a diverse group of established and emerging scholars in political theory who share an interest, first, in the rhetorical character of political thought, discourse, and action, and second, in understanding the complex connections between rhetoric and democracy. Traversing temporal periods (ancient Rome, early modern England, the contemporary world) as well as cultural and religious contexts, these papers provide a constellation of perspectives on the ways in which rhetorical analysis can be deployed as a valuable interpretive optic for understanding political thinkers and political problems.
Drawing on her expertise in Arab and Islamic thought as well as comparative political theory, Yasmeen Daifallah explores the work of two contemporary thinkers, Abdullah Laroui and Abdurrahman Taha. Eschewing the tendency to focus on these thinkers’ “philosophical and ideological differences,” Daifallah instead examines “what they have in common: namely, their mobilization of conceptual-rhetorical practices like concept-coinage, concept-resignification, and conceptual juxtaposition to enact the political subject … of which they speak.” This shift enables one to see “a set of conceptual and narratological practices” facilitate “a critique to postcolonial authoritarianism and offer a democratic political vision in its stead.”
Rob Goodman’s paper takes readers back to ancient Rome and Cicero’s De oratore to develop “the concept of authorizing tropes in the history of rhetoric: claims that are intended to justify why some speakers are heard instead of others, which in turn shape the stylistic qualities of speech.” Understanding how and why some speakers are heard and others aren’t is an important question for anyone interested in democracy, but Goodman also makes “an important methodological contribution to the study of rhetoric and the history of political thought.” In short, “we can use authorizing tropes to investigate style in a more materially grounded way, asking how speakers reinforce or challenge prevalent tropes, which sets of tropes have proved especially influential, and how prevalent tropes change over time.”
Mary Jo MacDonald’s paper locates itself in early modernity and focuses on a figure who has attracted considerable attention among rhetorically-minded scholars: Thomas Hobbes. Here MacDonald compellingly contrasts Hobbes’s description of the Amazons with Margaret Cavendish’s description of them in her play, “Bell in Campo.” She provocatively argues that “Cavendish highlights the emancipatory potential of Hobbes' account of natural equality.” That is, “Cavendish uses the story of the Amazons to flip Hobbes on his head. By reminding her readers of the dangers women pose, she suggests that it is perhaps the dangerous equals who ought to keep the Leviathan in awe.”
Finally, Keith Topper’s paper examines the ways in which political theorists who seek to radically transform their readers’ taken-for-granted perspectives on politics, history, and more often deploy rhetorical resources to do so. Focusing carefully on the opening pages of Hobbes’s Leviathan, Rousseau’s Social Contract, and Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, among others, he shows how the tools of rhetorical redescription are deployed to unsettle entrenched assumptions and understandings.

Sub Unit

• Division 1: Political Thought and Philosophy

Individual Presentations

• Concept-Resignification as Democratizing Practice in Arab Political Thought - Yasmeen Daifallah, University of California, Santa Cruz

• Authorizing Tropes and the Structure of Style - Rob Goodman, Toronto Metropolitan University

• Hobbes’ and Cavendish’s Amazons - Mary Jo MacDonald, University of Toronto

• Rhetoric and the Politics of Radical Transformation - Keith Topper, University of California, Irvine

Chair

• Roxanne L. Euben University of Pennsylvania

Discussants

• Roxanne L. Euben University of Pennsylvania

• Stacey Liou University of Florida