front cover of Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine
Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine
Judy Z. Segal
Southern Illinois University Press, 2005

Assessing rhetorical principles of contemporary health issues

Hypochondriacs are vulnerable to media hype, anorexics are susceptible to public scrutiny, and mi­graine sufferers are tainted with the history of the “migraine personality,” maintains rhetorical theorist Judy Z. Segal. All are influenced by the power of per­suasion.

Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine explores per­sistent health conditions that resist conventional medical solutions. Using a range of rhetorical prin­ciples, Segal analyzes how patients and their illnesses are formed within the physician/patient relationship. The intractable problem of a patient’s rejection of a doctor’s advice, says Segal, can be considered a rhe­torical failure—a failure of persuasion.

Examining the discourse of medicine through case studies, applications, and analyses, Segal illus­trates how illnesses are described in ways that limit

patients’ choices and satisfaction. She also illuminates psychiatric conditions, infectious diseases, genetic testing, and cosmetic surgeries through the lens of rhetorical theory.

Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine bridges criti­cal analysis for scholarly, professional, and lay audi­ences. Segal highlights the persuasive element in di­agnosis, health policy, illness experience, and illness narratives. She also addresses questions of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, the role of health information in creating the “worried well” and problems of trust and expertise in physician/patient relationships. A useful resource for critical common sense in everyday life, the text provides an effective examination of a society increasingly influ­enced by the rhetoric of health and medicine.

[more]

front cover of Hebrew Infusion
Hebrew Infusion
Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps
Sarah Bunin Benor, Jonathan B. Krasner, and Sharon Avni
Rutgers University Press, 2019
Winner of the 2020 National Jewish Book Award in Education and Jewish Identity

Each summer, tens of thousands of American Jews attend residential camps, where they may see Hebrew signs, sing and dance to Hebrew songs, and hear a camp-specific hybrid language register called Camp Hebraized English, as in: “Let’s hear some ruach (spirit) in this chadar ochel (dining hall)!” Using historical and sociolinguistic methods, this book explains how camp directors and staff came to infuse Hebrew in creative ways and how their rationales and practices have evolved from the early 20th century to today.  Some Jewish leaders worry that Camp Hebraized English impedes Hebrew acquisition, while others recognize its power to strengthen campers’ bonds with Israel, Judaism, and the Jewish people. Hebrew Infusion explores these conflicting ideologies, showing how hybrid language can serve a formative role in fostering religious, diasporic communities. The insightful analysis and engaging descriptions of camp life will appeal to anyone interested in language, education, or American Jewish culture.
[more]

front cover of Hector P Garcia
Hector P Garcia
Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights
Michelle Hall Kells. Foreword by Rolando Hinojosa-Smith
Southern Illinois University Press, 2006

Examining the Mexican American civil rights movement through the public rhetoric of a veteran activist

Héctor P. García: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights examines the transition of Mexican Americans from political and social marginalization to civic inclusion after World War II. Focusing on the public rhetoric of veteran rights activist and physician Dr. Héctor P. García, a Mexican immigrant who achieved unprecedented influence within the U.S. political system, author Michelle Hall Kells provides an important case study in the exercise of influence, the formation of civic identity, and the acquisition of social power among this underrepresented group.

As a major influence in national twentieth-century civil rights reform, García effectively operated between Anglo and Mexican American sociopolitical structures. The volume illustrates how García, a decorated World War II veteran and founder of the American GI Forum in Texas in 1948, successfully engendered a discourse that crossed geographical, political, and cultural borders, forming associations with the working poor as well as with prominent national figures such as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Through his rhetoric and action, García publicly revealed the plight of Mexican Americans, crossing class, regional, and racial lines to improve socioeconomic conditions for his people.

Héctor P. García, which is enhanced by sixteen illustrations, contributes to rhetorical, cultural, and historical studies and offers new scholarship establishing García’s role on the national front, effectively tracing Garcia’s legacy of resistance, the process of achieving enfranchisement, and the role of racism in the evolution from social marginalization to national influence.

[more]

front cover of Hegel on Hamann
Hegel on Hamann
G. W. F. Hegel
Northwestern University Press, 2008

In 1828, G. W. F. Hegel published a critical review of Johann George Hamann, a retrospective of the life and works of one of Germany's most enigmatic and challenging thinkers and writers. While Hegel's review had enjoyed a central place in Hamann studies since its appearance, Hegel on Hamann is the first English translation of the important work. Philosophers, theologians, and literary critics welcome Anderson's stunning translation since Hamann is gaining renewed attention, not only as a key figure of German intellectual history, but also as an early forerunner of postmodern thought. Relationships between Enlightenment, Counter Enlightenment, and Idealism come to the fore as Hegel reflects on Hamann's critiques of his contemporaries Immanuel Kant, Moses Mendelssohn, J. G. Herder, and F. H. Jacobi. Hegel on Hamann also includes an introduction to Hegel's review, as well as an essay on the role of friendship in Hamann's life, in Hegel's thought, and in German intellectual culture more broadly. Rounding out the volume are its extensive annotations and bibliography, which facilitate further study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophy in English and German. This book is essential both for readers of Hegel or Hamann and for those interested in the history of German thought, the philosophy of religion, language and hermeneutics, or friendship as a philosophical category.

[more]

front cover of Hegemonies of Language and Their Discontents
Hegemonies of Language and Their Discontents
The Southwest North American Region Since 1540
Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez
University of Arizona Press, 2017
Spanish and English have fought a centuries-long battle for linguistic dominance in the Southwest North American Region. Covering the time period of 1540 to the present, Hegemonies of Language and Their Discontents provides a deep and broad understanding of the contradictory methods of establishing language supremacy in this U.S.-Mexico transborder region and the manner in which those affected have responded and acted, often in dissatisfaction and at times with inventive adaptations.

Well-regarded author Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez details the linguistic and cultural processes used by penetrating imperial and national states. He argues that these impositions have been not linear but hydra-headed, complex and contradictory, sometimes accommodated and sometimes forcefully imposed. Such impositions have created discontent resulting in physical and linguistic revolts, translanguage versions, and multilayered capacities of use and misuse of imposed languages—even the invention of community-created trilingual dictionaries.

Vélez-Ibáñez gives particular attention to both sides of the border, explaining the consequences of the fragile splitting of the area through geopolitical border formation. He illustrates the many ways those discontents have manifested in linguistic, cultural, educational, political, and legal forms.

From revolt to revitalization, from silent objection to expressive defiance, people in the Southwest North American Region have developed arcs of discontent from the Spanish colonial period to the present. These narratives are supported by multiple sources, including original Spanish colonial documents and new and original ethnographic studies of performance rituals like the matachines of New Mexico. This unique work discusses the most recent neurobiological studies of bilingualism and their implications for cognitive development and language as it spans multiple disciplines. Finally, it provides the most important models for dual language development and their integration to the "Funds of Knowledge" concept as creative contemporary discontents with monolingual approaches.
[more]

front cover of Heidegger and Marx
Heidegger and Marx
A Productive Dialogue over the Language of Humanism
Laurence Paul Hemming
Northwestern University Press, 2013
Martin Heidegger and Karl Marx remain two of the most influential thinkers in philosophy, in political science and other social sciences, and in the humanities. Yet there has never been a full-length study in English of the relationship between their ideas, and there has only been one study in German (from 1966). A Productive Dialogue fills this gap and contradicts the widely held assumption that Heidegger had no significant engagement with Marx. Hemming focuses on four related areas of inquiry—Heidegger’s reading of Marx; Marx’s relation to G. W. F. Hegel; Heidegger’s disastrous political involvement with National Socialism; and the significance of Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, and Friedrich Nietzsche for the politics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A Productive Dialogue explores the understanding of political processes, systems, and behavior that animates both thinkers.
[more]

front cover of Hillary Clinton's Career in Speeches
Hillary Clinton's Career in Speeches
The Promises and Perils of Women's Rhetorical Adaptivity
Shawn J. Parry-Giles
Michigan State University Press, 2023
Women candidates are under more pressure to communicate competence and likability than men. And when women balance these rhetorical pressures, charges of inauthenticity creep in, suggesting the structural and strategic anti-woman backlash at play in presidential politics. Hillary Clinton demonstrated considerable ability to adapt her rhetoric across roles, contexts, genres, and audiences. Comparisons between Clinton’s campaign speeches and those of her presidential opponents (Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump) show that her rhetorical range exceeded theirs. And comparisons with Democratic women candidates of 2020 suggest they too exhibited a rhetorical range and faced a backlash similar to Clinton. Hillary Clinton’s Career in Speeches combines statistical text-mining methods with close reading to analyze the rhetorical highs and lows of one of the most successful political women in U.S. history. Drawing on Clinton’s oratory across governing and campaigning, the authors debunk the stereotype that she was a wooden and insufferably wonkish speaker. They marshal evidence for the argument that the sexist tactics in American politics function to turn women’s rhetorical strengths into political liabilities. 
[more]

front cover of A History of Language
A History of Language
Steven Roger Fischer
Reaktion Books, 2018
This second edition of Steven Roger Fischer’s fascinating book charts the history of communication from a time before human language was conceived of to the media explosion of the present day. Fischer begins by describing the modes of communication used by whales, birds, insects, and nonhuman primates, suggesting these are the first contexts in which the concept of “language” might be applied. He then moves from the early abilities of Homo erectus to the spread of languages worldwide, analyzing the effect of the development of writing along the way. With the advent of the science of linguistics in the nineteenth century, the nature of human languages first came to be studied and understood. Fischer follows the evolution of linguists’ insights and the relationship of language to social change into the mid-1900s. Taking into account the rise of pidgin, Creole, jargon, and slang, he goes on to raise provocative questions about literature’s—and literacy’s—relationship to language. Finally, touching on the effects of radio, television, propaganda, and advertising, Fischer looks to the future, asking how electronic media are daily reshaping the world’s languages and suggesting a radical reinterpretation of what language really is.
[more]

front cover of History of Language
History of Language
Steven Roger Fischer
Reaktion Books, 2001
It is tempting to take the tremendous rate of contemporary linguistic change for granted. What is required, in fact, is a radical reinterpretation of what language is. Steven Roger Fischer begins his book with an examination of the modes of communication used by dolphins, birds and primates as the first contexts in which the concept of "language" might be applied. As he charts the history of language from the times of Homo erectus, Neanderthal humans and Homo sapiens through to the nineteenth century, when the science of linguistics was developed, Fischer analyses the emergence of language as a science and its development as a written form. He considers the rise of pidgin, creole, jargon and slang, as well as the effects radio and television, propaganda, advertising and the media are having on language today. Looking to the future, he shows how electronic media will continue to reshape and re-invent the ways in which we communicate.

"[a] delightful and unexpectedly accessible book ... a virtuoso tour of the linguistic world."—The Economist

"... few who read this remarkable study will regard language in quite the same way again."—The Good Book Guide
[more]

logo for University of Iowa Press
A Hole in the Language
Marly Swick
University of Iowa Press, 1990

These stories are delicate seismographic meditations on disaster and its aftershocks. The characters are survivors, digging their way out of the past, shaken but hopeful. Despite all their tragic losses, there is a pervasive sense of humor, hope, and forgiveness: abandonment leads ultimately to reunion, grief to solace. This is contemporary America—a jigsaw puzzle of fragmented families constantly picking up the pieces and fitting themselves together in new ways to form unforgettable pictures.


[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Homeric Conversation
Deborah Beck
Harvard University Press, 2005
Homeric Conversation is the first full-length study of conversation in the Homeric poems. Deborah Beck argues that conversation should be considered a traditional Homeric type scene, alongside recognized types such as arrival, sacrifice, battle, and hospitality. Drawing on both linguistics and previous work on type scenes and oral aesthetics, the book describes the typical conversational patterns that characterize a range of situations, including one-on-one conversation, formal assemblies, battlefield encounters, and laments. Departures from these typical patterns for conversation provide the basis for a wide-ranging, closely argued aesthetic analysis of repetition and variation in the Homeric epics.
[more]

front cover of Homer's Text and Language
Homer's Text and Language
Gregory Nagy
University of Illinois Press, 2004
As Homer remains an indispensable figure in the canons of world literature, interpreting the Homeric text is a challenging and high stakes enterprise. There are untold numbers of variations, imitations, alternate translations, and adaptations of the Iliad and Odyssey, making it difficult to establish what, exactly, the epics were. Gregory Nagy's essays have one central aim: to show how the text and language of Homer derive from an oral poetic system. 
 
In Homeric studies, there has been an ongoing debate centering on different ways to establish the text of Homer and the different ways to appreciate the poetry created in the language of Homer. Gregory Nagy, a lifelong Homer scholar, takes a stand in the midst of this debate. He presents an overview of millennia of scholarly engagement with Homer's poetry, shows the different editorial principles that have been applied to the texts, and evaluates their impact.
 
[more]

front cover of How to Do Things with Pornography
How to Do Things with Pornography
Nancy Bauer
Harvard University Press, 2015

Feminist philosophers have made important strides in altering the overwhelmingly male-centric discipline of philosophy. Yet, in Nancy Bauer’s view, most are still content to work within theoretical frameworks that are fundamentally false to human beings’ everyday experiences. This is particularly intolerable for a species of philosophy whose central aspiration is to make the world a less sexist place. How to Do Things with Pornography models a new way to write philosophically about pornography, women’s self-objectification, hook-up culture, and other contemporary phenomena. Unafraid to ask what philosophy contributes to our lives, Bauer argues that the profession’s lack of interest in this question threatens to make its enterprise irrelevant.

Bauer criticizes two paradigmatic models of Western philosophizing: the Great Man model, according to which philosophy is the product of rare genius; and the scientistic model, according to which a community of researchers works together to discover once-and-for-all truths. The philosopher’s job is neither to perpetuate the inevitably sexist trope of the philosopher-genius nor to “get things right.” Rather, it is to compete with the Zeitgeist and attract people to the endeavor of reflecting on their settled ways of perceiving and understanding the world.

How to Do Things with Pornography boldly enlists J. L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words, showing that it should be read not as a theory of speech acts but as a revolutionary conception of what philosophers can do in the world with their words.

[more]

front cover of The Human Right to Language
The Human Right to Language
Communication Access for Deaf Children
Lawrence Siegel
Gallaudet University Press, 2008

In 1982, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Amy Rowley, a deaf six-year-old, was not entitled to have a sign language interpreter in her public school classroom. Lawrence Siegel wholeheartedly disagrees with this decision in his new book The Human Right to Language: Communication Access for Deaf Children. Instead, he contends that the United States Constitution should protect every deaf and hard of hearing child’s right to communication and language as part of an individual’s right to liberty. Siegel argues that when a deaf or hard of hearing child sits alone in a crowded classroom and is unable to access the rich and varied communication around her, the child is denied any chance of success in life.

In The Human Right to Language, Siegel proposes that the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution be enforced so that Amy Rowley and her peers can possess that which virtually every other American child takes for granted – the right to receive and express thought in school. He asserts that the common notion of a right to “speech” is too infrequently interpreted in the narrowest sense as the right to “speak” rather than the broader right to receive and transmit information in all ways. Siegel reveals that there are no judicial decisions or laws that recognize this missing right, and offers here a legal and constitutional strategy for change. His well-reasoned hypothesis and many examples of deaf children with inadequate communication access in school combine to make a compelling case for changing the status quo.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter