Field rhetoric : ethnography, ecology, and engagement in the places of persuasion /

Rhetoric, says Aristotle famously, is the art of "finding all the available means of persuasion." In contrast to poetics, rhetoric is characterized by its situatedness or entanglement in contexts constitutive of what is called polis. Taking as its starting point the idea that the study of rhetoric "is both enriched and perplexed by being present, being there, in places where rhetoric does its work," Field Rhetoric collects 10 essays addressing various aspects central to the practice of rhetoric as a goal-oriented verbal art in situ. Divided into three parts--field methodologies, field ontologies, field interventions--these essays offer "related but varying visions, methods, and theoretical underpinnings for rhetorical fieldwork," displaying the possibility of a coherent research program capable of ranging over multiple issues essential to civic life. The volume provides an unblinking glimpse into what can rightly be described as a field study of live engagements in the living space of persuasion. Field Rhetoric belongs in the bookcase of anyone who believes in the power and importance of an ancient art as it is made to return to its original vocation, revived by contemporary methods and their distinctly modern, ecological point of view. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Briankle G. Chang, University of Massachusetts