Hyperbole has a varied and contentious history, and its forms and functions are largely ignored and dismissed today. Often misunderstood, hyperbole nevertheless offers critical insights into our understandings of epistemology and ontology that cannot go unexplored. In order to recover and reinvigorate a theory of hyperbole within the field of rhetorical theory and criticism, I explore the history of this critical trope from ancient to modern times. I then offer two functions and one meta-function of hyperbole based on this historical survey: moving through impossibility towards possibility, asserting a lie on the side of truth(s), and re-orienting one’s perspective through disorientation. Derived from a historical survey of hyperbole, these two functions and one meta-function are vital for understanding and constructing a theory of hyperbole that is productive and useful for current theoretical discussion. Using these functions, I offer a variety of examples under the purview of the epideictic and grotesque genres and show how hyperbole might be employed within rhetorical theory and criticism. Overall, this project seeks to respond to the gap that exists within current rhetorical theory regarding hyperbole, to explore why hyperbole is often dismissed as a tropological expression of excess and exaggeration, and to revitalize interest in hyperbole for critical use in areas such as rhetoric, theology, and philosophy.

The following is an exploration of the use of epideictic rhetoric strategies in nineteenth-century conduct manuals, Sarah Stickney Ellis’s The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits, and Harriet Martineau’s Household Education. In examining the rhetoric of the conduct manuals, this researcher has identified the audience, the rhetorical situation, the exigence of that situation, and the use of phronisis, areti, and euonia by both authors. Because the rhetoric of the conduct manual has not been discussed in current critical perspectives, this research is a starting point for further study. The different types of rhetorical strategies used by each author are the focal points used to uncover how epideictic rhetoric can be understood beyond the restrictions of funeral orations and ceremonial speeches. The primary critical research used in this project has been that focused on epideictic rhetoric and the conduct manuals themselves.

This study investigates ethical argumentation in Perelman and Gadamer to claim that the central theoretical framework in each philosophy simultaneously inflects and deflects available avenues of persuasion. I argue in each system there is a “confused notion” whose ambiguity underpins the available methods of rhetorical argument. For Perelman, the confused notion of the universal audience and its relationship to epideictic rhetoric determines the form of ethical persuasion that requires consensus in order to incite action for justice. For Gadamer, the confused notion of Vorurteil (prejudice, or fore- judgment) is used to critique tradition, Enlightenment reason, and historical hermeneutics. This mode of ethical argument suggests that open dialogue with an other is the best means for addressing prejudice in order to reach mutual understanding. I argue that by placing these two approaches to ethical argument into critical dialogue, their respective capacities, limitations, and distinctive rhetorical outcomes can be more clearly apprehended. / 10000-01-01

Esta dissertação de mestrado versa sobre dois discursos do ateniense Isócrates: Contra os Sofistas e Elogio de Helena, compostos por volta de 390 a. C. O estudo do primeiro trata da filosofia de Isócrates; o do segundo, da maneira como o gênero epidítico é utilizado pelo autor. Há ainda um último comentário sobre o uso de moldes discursivos presente na estruturação de seus discursos. Segue-se, ao final, a tradução em português acompanhada de notas de ambos os discursos. / This dissertation deals with two speeches of the Athenian Isocrates: Against the Sophists and Helen, composed around 390 a. C. The analysis of the first speech deals with the \"philosophy\" of Isocrates; the second, the way the epideictic genre is used by the author. There is also a comment on the use of certain discursive molds that belong to the structure of his speeches. Finally, is presented a translation into Portuguese with notes of both speeches.

Esta dissertação de mestrado versa sobre dois discursos do ateniense Isócrates: Contra os Sofistas e Elogio de Helena, compostos por volta de 390 a. C. O estudo do primeiro trata da filosofia de Isócrates; o do segundo, da maneira como o gênero epidítico é utilizado pelo autor. Há ainda um último comentário sobre o uso de moldes discursivos presente na estruturação de seus discursos. Segue-se, ao final, a tradução em português acompanhada de notas de ambos os discursos. / This dissertation deals with two speeches of the Athenian Isocrates: Against the Sophists and Helen, composed around 390 a. C. The analysis of the first speech deals with the \"philosophy\" of Isocrates; the second, the way the epideictic genre is used by the author. There is also a comment on the use of certain discursive molds that belong to the structure of his speeches. Finally, is presented a translation into Portuguese with notes of both speeches.

Aristotle's division of the "species" of rhetoric (deliberative, forensic, and epideictic) has served as a helpful taxonomy in historical accounts of rhetoric, but it has also produced undesirable effects. One such effect is that epideictic rhetoric has been interpreted historically as deficient, unimportant or merely ostentatious, while political or legal discourse retained a favored status in authentic civic life. This analysis argues that such an interpretation reduces contemporary attention to the crucial role that epideixis plays in modern discourse. As often interpreted, epideictic rhetoric contains at its heart a striving toward communal values and utopic ideals. Taking as its province the good/bad, the praiseworthy/derisible, it is a rhetorical form supremely attentive to what counts for audiences, cultures, and subcultures. As such, it has direct entailments for all forms of rhetorical practice, however categorized, for in its essence is not simply a suggestion of timeliness or appropriate context for its delivery, but also method: a focus on identification and affinity is at the heart of epideixis. Taking an expanded definition of epideixis, I argue that Aristotle's classification be read as provisional (that he allowed for and expected overlap with his divisions), and further, that criticism be seen as a form of contemporary epideixis. I claim that contemporary norms are more fractured than in classical times, and that as citizens no longer at the behest of formerly more unified cultural ideals it is through acts of criticism and aesthetic consensus that we often form emergent communities, gathering around objects of appraisal, around that which offers us pleasure (even the popular). I attempt to account for the mechanics of how, as Dave Hickey argues, “beautiful objects reorganize society, sometimes radically" (Invisible Dragon 81). The vectors through which this reorganization occurs are via popular discourse involving “comparisons, advocacy, analysis, and dissent” (Hickey Invisible Dragon 70), be it at the level of the interpersonal or in a more widely-sanctioned public forum such as professional criticism. I hope to show that epideixis is not a moribund rhetorical category, but a key discursive mode and way of forming community in our times.

No description available.

This dissertation traces the rhetorical history of Virginia Tech's April 16th Memorial from its earliest appearance immediately following the April 16, 2007 shootings up to its present iteration as a permanent memorial on Virginia Tech's campus. Specifically, this study reveals how the April 16th Memorial is a public memory performance that has changed (and continues to change) in its form, function, and significance across time. Based on a data set that includes archival evidence, interview data, and fieldwork, I argue that over the course of its history, the April 16th Memorial has negotiated tensions and fusions between the epideictic and deliberative genres that exist within its bounds. In doing so, the memorial asks audiences to honor and remember the dead while also compelling audiences to deliberate over the social and political issues punctuated by the tragedy. Whereas the epideictic appeals in the memorial aim to reknit the community, the deliberative appeals invite audiences to imagine a better, safer world. By tracing the intersections between these two genres, this study demonstrates how complementary and competing forces in the memorial vie over not only constructions of public memory but also the lessons we are meant to gain from the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech. / Doctor of Philosophy / Public memory refers to the shared recollections of history among members of a specific community. Rather than individual memory, public memory is constituted by what communities choose to remember and forget and what gets retold to future generations. Specific artifacts help support the creation of public memory, including archives, museums, monuments, and memorials. Scholars tend to agree that what communities chose to monumentalize in stone often reflects a desire to shape public memory in strategic ways. This dissertation traces the history of the April 16th Memorial at Virginia Tech in order to capture how the commemorative site has influenced (and continues to influence) public memory of the shootings that occurred at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. Using archival evidence, interview data, and fieldnotes collected at the site, I argue that the April 16th Memorial asks visitors to honor and remember the dead while also compelling visitors to deliberate over the kinds of action that might prevent school shootings in the future. This study demonstrates how complementary and competing forces in the memorial vie over not only constructions of public memory but also the lessons we are meant to gain from the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech.

This dissertation examines American Civil War tourist spaces in order to describe how epideictic rhetoric has distinct spatial functions that affect the identity of tourists. Through an analysis of three Civil War spaces in Virginia--Lexington, Appomattox Court House, and the Museum of the Confederacy--I argue epideictic space is a locus of invention that has the performative power to create community, public memory, and a vision of the future through the movement of bodies in space. Through a consubstantial ethos established between space and audience, epideictic creates kairotic space and time by collapsing past, present, and future in order to create a narrative history with which the community can identify. This study traces rhetoric related to the Confederate flag, slavery, nationalism, and reconciliation through an analysis of the Civil War spaces in which these discourses are embodied. I suggest that creating a productive rhetoric of blame starts through connecting blame, such as remembering slavery, to the materiality of space and through creating narratives of responsibility that connect memory to a vision of the future. / Ph. D.

A number of presidents have aided the auto industry, protected it from external threats, or saved it from collapse, while presidential rhetoric about the industry is positive and consistent across political parties and over time. I conduct rhetorical analyses of the entire history of presidential speech about the industry to explain the evolution of the relationship between these two institutions. I argue that this relationship is an example of the institutionalization of speech; perfunctory campaign praise became habitual and eventually coalesced into a rhetorical legacy that entailed rhetorical and material resources and constraints for the institution of the presidency. In the case of the auto industry, presidents sought political support from the auto industry as a constituency, erased blameworthy aspects of industry history, and created an industry identity that was exceptional, which served as justification for defense of the industry and intervention during periods of economic recession, regulatory stress, foreign competition, and imminent collapse of an automaker. Such cases of institutionalized speech between the presidency and other institutions are special, but not unique; this case provides an instructive example of how speech becomes legacy over time, and of what the consequences of such legacies might include for this case and for possible others.