BiblioVault - Books by Frank, David A

Classical Rhetoric and Contemporary Law

A Critical Reader

Edited by Francis J. Mootz III, Kirsten K. Davis, Brian N. Larson, and Kristen K. Tiscione

University of Alabama Press, 2024

Pairs passages from works of classical rhetoric with contemporary legal rulings to highlight and analyze their deep and abiding connections in matters of persuasion

Classical Rhetoric and Contemporary Law: A Critical Reader is a rich work that analyzes the interplay between ancient rhetorical traditions and modern legal practice, reestablishing the lost connections between law and classical rhetoric. From Isocrates’s Panegyricus in 380 BCE to the landmark US Supreme Court case Trump v. Hawaii in 2018, and from Antiphon’s fifth century BCE First Tetralogy to 1995’s O. J. Simpson trial, the volume draws on an array of sources to illuminate how ancient rhetorical insights may even today challenge and enrich our grasp of contemporary legal principles.

The collection opens with a brisk review of the historical development of rhetoric. The second part examines a pair of rhetorical theorists whose works frame the period across which classical rhetoric declined as a mode of thought. A contemporary appellate case contrasts with the work of Giambattista Vico, an eighteenth-century professor of rhetoric who warned of the separation of law from rhetoric. The analysis of the work of twentieth-century scholars Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrects-Tyteca shows that where Cartesian rationality fails, the humanistic tradition of rhetoric allows the law to respond to the needs of justice. In the third part, ten case studies bring together a classical rhetorical theorist with a contemporary court case, demonstrating the abiding relevance of the classical tradition to contemporary jurisprudence.

With its cross-disciplinary appeal, Classical Rhetoric and Contemporary Law encompasses the work of legal, rhetorical, English, and communication scholars alike, catalyzing interactive exploration into the profound ways ancient rhetorical insights continue to shape our comprehension of today’s legal landscape.

CONTRIBUTORS
Vasileios Adamidis / Elizabeth C. Britt / Kirsten K. Davis / David A. Frank / Michael Gagarin / Eugene Garver / Mark A. Hannah / Catherine L. Langford / Brian N. Larson / Craig A. Meyer / Francis J. Mootz III / Susan E. Provenzano / Nick J. Sciullo / Kristen K. Tiscione / Laura A. Webb

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Frames of Evil

The Holocaust as Horror in American Film

Caroline J. S. Picart, and David A. Frank. Foreword by Dominick LaCapra. Introduction by Edward J. Ingebretsen

Southern Illinois University Press, 2006

Challenging the classic horror frame in American film

American filmmakers appropriate the “look” of horror in Holocaust films and often use Nazis and Holocaust imagery to explain evil in the world, say authors Caroline Joan (Kay) S. Picart and David A. Frank. In Frames of Evil: The Holocaust as Horror in American Film, Picart and Frank challenge this classic horror frame—the narrative and visual borders used to demarcate monsters and the monstrous. After examining the way in which directors and producers of the most influential American Holocaust movies default to this Gothic frame, they propose that multiple frames are needed to account for evil and genocide.

Using Schindler’s List, The Silence of the Lambs, and Apt Pupil as case studies, the authors provide substantive and critical analyses of these films that transcend the classic horror interpretation. For example, Schindler’s List, say Picart and Frank, has the appearance of a historical docudrama but actually employs the visual rhetoric and narrative devices of the Hollywood horror film. The authors argue that evil has a face: Nazism, which is configured as quintessentially innate, and supernaturally crafty.

Frames of Evil, which is augmented by thirty-six film and publicity stills, also explores the commercial exploitation of suffering in film and offers constructive ways of critically evaluating this exploitation. The authors suggest that audiences will recognize their participation in much larger narrative formulas that place a premium on monstrosity and elide the role of modernity in depriving millions of their lives and dignity, often framing the suffering of others in a manner that allows for merely “documentary” enjoyment.

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The Promise of Reason

Studies in The New Rhetoric

Edited by John T. Gage

Southern Illinois University Press, 2011

No single work is more responsible for the heightened interest in argumentation and informal reasoning—and their relation to ethics and jurisprudence in the late twentieth century—than Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca’s monumental study of argumentation, La Nouvelle Rhétorique: Traité de l'Argumentation. Published in 1958 and translated into English as The New Rhetoric in 1969, this influential volume returned the study of reason to classical concepts of rhetoric. In The Promise of Reason: Studies in The New Rhetoric, leading scholars of rhetoric Barbara Warnick, Jeanne Fahnestock, Alan G. Gross, Ray D. Dearin, and James Crosswhite are joined by prominent and emerging European and American scholars from different disciplines to demonstrate the broad scope and continued relevance of The New Rhetoric more than fifty years after its initial publication.

Divided into four sections—Conceptual Understandings of The New Rhetoric, Extensions of The New Rhetoric, The Ethical Turn in Perelman and The New Rhetoric, and Uses of The New Rhetoric—this insightful volume covers a wide variety of topics. It includes general assessments of The New Rhetoric and its central concepts, as well as applications of those concepts to innovative areas in which argumentation is being studied, such as scientific reasoning, visual media, and literary texts. Additional essays compare Perelman’s ideas with those of other significant thinkers like Kenneth Burke and Richard McKeon, explore his career as a philosopher and activist, and shed new light on Perelman and Olbrechts- Tyteca’s collaboration. Two contributions present new scholarship based on recent access to letters, interviews, and archival materials housed in the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Among the volume’s unique gifts is a personal memoir from Perelman’s daughter, Noémi Perelman Mattis, published here for the first time.

The Promise of Reason, expertly compiled and edited by John T. Gage, is the first to investigate the pedagogical implications of Perelman and Olbrechts- Tyteca’s groundbreaking work and will lead the way to the next generation of argumentation studies.

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Shared Land/Conflicting Identity

Trajectories of Israeli & Palestinian Symbol Use

Robert C. Rowland

Michigan State University Press, 2002

Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajectories of Israeli and Palestinian Symbol Use argues that rhetoric, ideology, and myth have played key roles in influencing the development of the 100-year conflict between first the Zionist settlers and the current Israeli people and the Palestinian residents in what is now Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is usually treated as an issue of land and water. While these elements are the core of the conflict, they are heavily influenced by the symbols used by both peoples to describe, understand, and persuade each other. The authors argue that symbolic practices deeply influenced the Oslo Accords, and that the breakthrough in the peace process that led to Oslo could not have occurred without a breakthrough in communication styles.
Rowland and Frank develop four crucial ideas on social development: the roles of rhetoric, ideology, and myth; the influence of symbolic factors; specific symbolic factors that played a key role in peace negotiations; and the identification and value of criteria for evaluating symbolic practices in any society.

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