The Rhetoric of Religion

The Rhetoric of Religion
Author: Kenneth Burke
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1970-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780520016101

"But the point of Burke's work, and the significance of his achievement, is not that he points out that religion and language affect each other, for this has been said before, but that he proceeds to demonstrate how this is so by reference to a specific symbolic context. After a discussion 'On Words and The Word,' he analysess verbal action in St. Augustine's Confessions. He then discusses the first three chapters of Genesis, and ends with a brilliant and profound 'Prologue in Heaven,' an imaginary dialogue between the Lord and Satan in which he proposes that we begin our study of human motives with complex theories of transcendence,' rather than with terminologies developed in the use of simplified laboratory equipment. . . . Burke now feels, after some forty years of search, that he has created a model of the symbolic act which breaks through the rigidities of the 'sacred-secular' dichotomy, and at the same time shows us how we get from secular and sacred realms of action over the bridge of language. . . . Religious systems are systems of action based on communication in society. They are great social dramas which are played out on earth before an ultimate audience, God. But where theology confronts the developed cosmological drama in the 'grand style,' that is, as a fully developed cosmological drama for its religious content, the 'logologer' can be further studied not directly as knowledge but as anecdotes that help reveal for us the quandaries of human governance." --Hugh Dalziel Duncan from Critical Responses to Kenneth Burke, 1924 - 1966, edited by William H. Rueckert (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969).

Rhetoric, Religion and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965

Rhetoric, Religion and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965
Author: Davis W. Houck
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Total Pages: 1013
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 1932792546

V.2: Building upon their critically acclaimed first volume, Davis W. Houck and David E. Dixon's new Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965 is a recovery project of enormous proportions. Houck and Dixon have again combed church archives, government documents, university libraries, and private collections in pursuit of the civil rights movement's long-buried eloquence. Their new work presents fifty new speeches and sermons delivered by both famed leaders and little-known civil rights activists on national stages and in quiet shacks. The speeches carry novel insights into the ways in which individuals and communities utilized religious rhetoric to upset the racial status quo in divided America during the civil rights era. Houck and Dixon's work illustrates again how a movement so prominent in historical scholarship still has much to teach us. (Publisher).

New Directions in Rhetoric and Religion

New Directions in Rhetoric and Religion
Author: James W. Vining
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1793622833

New Directions in Rhetoric and Religion reflects the complex and fluid natures of religion, rhetoric, and public life in our globalized, digital, and politically polarized world by bringing together a diverse group of rhetorical scholars to provide a comprehensive and forward-looking collection on rhetoric and religion. This volume addresses these topics in three separate sections: 1. Rhetorics of religion at work in public activism, 2. Rhetorics of religion in contemporary public discourse, and 3. Ways that rhetoric scholars study religion. Scholars of rhetoric, religion, and social sciences will find this book particularly interesting.

Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome

Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome
Author: Sophia Papaioannou
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110699621

It is perhaps a truism to note that ancient religion and rhetoric were closely intertwined in Greek and Roman antiquity. Religion is embedded in socio-political, legal and cultural institutions and structures, while also being influenced, or even determined, by them. Rhetoric is used to address the divine, to invoke the gods, to talk about the sacred, to express piety and to articulate, refer to, recite or explain the meaning of hymns, oaths, prayers, oracles and other religious matters and processes. The 13 contributions to this volume explore themes and topics that most succinctly describe the firm interrelation between religion and rhetoric mostly in, but not exclusively focused on, Greek and Roman antiquity, offering new, interdisciplinary insights into a great variety of aspects, from identity construction and performance to legal/political practices and a broad analytical approach to transcultural ritualistic customs. The volume also offers perceptive insights into oriental (i.e. Egyptian magic) texts and Christian literature.

The Rhetoric of Faith

The Rhetoric of Faith
Author: Scott D. Moringiello
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2019
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0813232600

The Rhetoric of Faith argues that the structure of Irenaeus’s opus magnum, the Adversus Haereses, is the argument of the Adversus Haereses. Through a close reading of the Irenaeus’s text, as well as through a comparison with Greco-Roman rhetorical texts, Scott Moringiello argues that Irenaeus structured his argument around the articles of the faith of the Church and that this structure builds on tropes found in the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition. The argument focuses on the Adversus Haereses, although it does begin with some discussion to put Irenaeus in the context of second century Christian literature. Moringiello concludes with a discussion of Irenaeus’s Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching.Other scholars have provided introductions to Irenaeus’s work, and other scholars have argued for the structural unity of the Adversus Haereses. No other scholar, though, has argued that the faith of the Church is the basis of Irenaeus’s argument. This argument, then, presents an important contribution to the field of Irenaeus studies.

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings
Author: Sean Patrick O'Rourke
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498550622

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings: Was Blind but Now I See is a collection focusing on the Charleston shootings written by leading scholars in the field who consider the rhetoric surrounding the shootings. This book offers an appraisal of the discourses – speeches, editorials, social media posts, visual images, prayers, songs, silence, demonstrations, and protests – that constituted, contested, and reconstituted the shootings in American civic life and cultural memory. It answers recent calls for local and regional studies and opens new fields of inquiry in the rhetoric, sociology, and history of mass killings, gun violence, and race relations—and it does so while forging new connections between and among on-going scholarly conversations about rhetoric, race, and religion. Contributors argue that Charleston was different from other mass shootings in America, and that this difference was made manifest through what was spoken and unspoken in its rhetorical aftermath. Scholars of race, religion, rhetoric, communication, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.

Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire

Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire
Author: Averil Cameron
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2023-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780520915503

Many reasons can be given for the rise of Christianity in late antiquity and its flourishing in the medieval world. In asking how Christianity succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology in the unpromising circumstances of the Roman Empire, Averil Cameron turns to the development of Christian discourse over the first to sixth centuries A.D., investigating the discourse's essential characteristics, its effects on existing forms of communication, and its eventual preeminence. Scholars of late antiquity and general readers interested in this crucial historical period will be intrigued by her exploration of these influential changes in modes of communication. The emphasis that Christians placed on language—writing, talking, and preaching—made possible the formation of a powerful and indeed a totalizing discourse, argues the author. Christian discourse was sufficiently flexible to be used as a public and political instrument, yet at the same time to be used to express private feelings and emotion. Embracing the two opposing poles of logic and mystery, it contributed powerfully to the gradual acceptance of Christianity and the faith's transformation from the enthusiasm of a small sect to an institutionalized world religion.

Preaching Politics

Preaching Politics
Author: Jerome Dean Mahaffey
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2007
Genre: Rhetoric
ISBN: 1932792880

Preaching Politics' traces the surprising and lasting influence of one of American history's most fascinating and enigamtic figures, George Whitefield, and his role in creating a 'rhetoric of community.