Letter to the editor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jacob Wright

MAJ Garriot

ERH 201

Date:12/11/18

Word Count:  1033

Help Received:  JSTOR, Library resources

Good day Brian Eschrich,

My name is Jacob Wright and I am writing to you with regards to James A. Herrick’s book The History and Theory of the Rhetorical Tradition.  I believe that this is a very good tool for an introduction to rhetoric for students who are just beginning their studies on the subject.  Herrick provides an excellent baseline of the traditional view of the rhetorical tradition providing a foundation for further inquiry by students who are familiar with the day to day rhetoric of the western culture.

However, Herrick does not discuss the important of rhetoric drafted by peoples other than Europeans decedent from the Greek traditions.  This creates a problem as there are other rhetorical traditions outside of the western traditions described by Herrick.  Additionally, Herrick does not consider what impacts the non-western peoples of the world have had on the western rhetorical tradition.  I would like to submit to you Mr. Eschrich that the Routledge Taylor and Francis Group publish a new book to compliment Herricks writing and provide a new perspective for students of rhetoric.

There is arising in scholarly rhetoric circles new ideas of what rhetoric can be and what rhetoric is.  One of these new scholarly circles looks at what they call rhetorics of display.  This idea of rhetoric focuses on visuals presented by their creator for the audience.  These visuals can be anything from a painting to a statue.  The work of rhetorics of display is to decipher what is meant by these presentations to the audience.[1]  An example of a contemporary rhetoric of display would be the confederate statues built throughout the deep south.  There is a difference between the ones built to watch over graveyards of the deceased and the statues built at the height of Jim crow in predominantly African-American neighborhoods.  This is just an example of what the scholars of rhetorics of display are trying to decipher and these ideas of rhetorics of display can be applied to any number of cultures throughout human history.

I have written a mockup chapter for your review of what topic and what focus of rhetoric might be covered in this book.  I have enclosed the chapter in the envelope, but I would like to discuss pieces of the chapter here for you.

The chapter that I have written focus on the rhetorics of display of the Achaemenid Persian empire exhibits numerous examples of traditional rhetoric and rhetorics of display.

One example of a traditional approach to rhetoric was that of King Xerxes as he crossed the Hellespont to invade Greece during the second Greco-Persian war.  While building a bridge across the channel the bridge collapsed due to a storm.  Xerxes responded by having the body of water whipped and the engineers working on the bridge to be put to death.  By executing the bridge builders, he is making an example of them to the next group that is set about to build the bridge.  This will encourage them not to take shortcuts when building the bridge as the workers on the bridge were probably drawn from the locals in the area who would have been sympathetic to the Greek cause.  The whipping of the Hellespont demonstrates to the army of Xerxes that he is the master of the elements and by that token it is only right that he should lead them.  The army of Xerxes was a multicultural one with soldiers from all over the middle east.  Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Persians all made up the army that would cross into Greece later that year.  Xerxes draws upon several rhetorical elements from the western tradition in the making of these statements.

An example of rhetorics of display elaborated upon in the chapter would be the great palace of Persepolis built by King Darius I.  When building the palace Darius included several artistic elements and the labor of every culture under the empires control at that time.  In this way Darius demonstrated how strong the empire can be when committed to a project that all the subordinate kings have a stake in.  It also demonstrates the power of the Persians themselves demonstrating the ability to mobilize vast numbers of men and material as a warning to anyone who might threaten to revolt against the king.  In the art work that the Persians decorated the palace the steles depict men from numerous cultures delivering tribute to the Persian king.  As the administrative center of the empire many people would have to encounter the palace on a yearly basis from some business or another.  The satraps of the empire would be the most important officials in the empire and would have to report to the king.  This visual reminder for the Satraps of how the empire works would have been very apparent as they visit different parts of the palace during their stay.

The textbook does not just have to look at the rhetorics of other cultures.  It can also include a chapter that focuses on the new developments in rhetoric right now.  There have been a number of books on new subjects within rhetoric that have been published in recent years.  Here are a few examples of the expanded nature of rhetorical study that has been occurring that is not mentioned in Herricks book.  There are rhetorics that are being developed that look at the way economist discuss economics with one another and how markets fluctuate over time.[2]  There are rhetorics like rhetorics of display that focus solely on the visual images that are created by people and often focus on modern day advertisements.[3]  There are even rhetorics being developed that look at the way that animals communicate with one another as a kind of rhetoric.[4]

For all these new developments in rhetoric in these past years there is not a textbook introducing students to the possibilities that are available within the rhetorical field if one is creative with the work.  This will encourage students to see that there are opportunities to forge their own path in academia and will convince some of them to look into the field of rhetoric as a serious area of study.

 

Very Respectfully,

Jacob Wright

VMI Class 2020

[1] Lawrence J. Prelli, Rhetorics of Display (University of South Carolina Perss, 2006), 1.

[2] Deirde N. McCloskey, The Rhetorics of Economics (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), xi.

[3] Charles A. Hill and Marguerite Helmers Defining Visual Rhetorics (Routledge, 2004), ix.

[4] Élisabeth De Fontenay and Will Bishop. “Rhetorics of Dehumanization.” In Without Offending Humans: A Critique of Animal Rights, 72-95 (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), 73.

Work Cited Page

Hill, Charles A., and Marguerite Helmers. Defining Visual Rhetorics.  Mahwah, NJ.:        Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004.   http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vmi/reader.action?docID=238919 .

Prelli, Lawrence J.  Rhetorics of Display.  Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina   Press, 2006.

McCloskey, Deirde N.  The Rhetoric of Economics.  Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin       Press, ©1998.            http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vmi/reader.action?docID=3444972

De Fontenay, Élisabeth, and Will Bishop. “Rhetorics of Dehumanization.” In Without       Offending Humans: A Critique of Animal Rights, 72-95. University of Minnesota           Press, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.cttttscr.7