Results by title

4 books match the query 'Rhetorical History'

cover of American Lobotomy: A Rhetorical History

American Lobotomy

A Rhetorical History

Jenell Johnson

University of Michigan Press, 2014

American Lobotomy studies a wide variety of representations of lobotomy to offer a rhetorical history of one of the most infamous procedures in the history of medicine. The development of lobotomy in 1935 was heralded as a “miracle cure” that would empty the nation’s perennially blighted asylums. However, only twenty years later, lobotomists initially praised for their “therapeutic courage” were condemned for their barbarity, an image that has only soured in subsequent decades. Johnson employs previously abandoned texts like science fiction, horror film, political polemics, and conspiracy theory to show how lobotomy’s entanglement with social and political narratives contributed to a powerful image of the operation that persists to this day. The book provocatively challenges the history of medicine, arguing that rhetorical history is crucial to understanding medical history. It offers a case study of how medicine accumulates meaning as it circulates in public culture and argues for the need to understand biomedicine as a culturally situated practice.
[more]
cover of American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, 1932-1945: A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume VII

American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, 1932-1945

A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume VII

Thomas Benson

Michigan State University Press, 2006

The New Deal era is hard to define with precision—in time or in ideology. Some historians use New Deal to designate the intense period of domestic reform legislation of the first Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, 1933–37. Others confine discussion of the era to the legislation of 1933, and identify another wave of legislation in 1935 as a Second New Deal. Most of the essays in this book focus on the prewar period, with glimpses that look forward to the rhetoric of the approach to and engagement in World War II.

[more]
cover of Public Debate in the Civil War Era: A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume IV

Public Debate in the Civil War Era

A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume IV

David Zarefsky

Michigan State University Press, 2023

Public debate and discussion was overshadowed by the slavery controversy during the period of the U.S. Civil War. Slavery was attacked, defended, amplified, and mitigated. This happened in the halls of Congress, the courts, the political debate, the public platform, and the lecture hall. This volume examines the issues, speakers, and venues for this controversy between 1850 and 1877. It combines exploration of the broad contours of controversy with careful analysis of specific speakers and texts.
 
[more]
cover of Social Controversy and Public Address in the 1960s and Early 1970s: A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume IX

Social Controversy and Public Address in the 1960s and Early 1970s

A Rhetorical History of the United States, Volume IX

Richard J. Jensen

Michigan State University Press, 2017

The period between the 1960s and 1970s is easily one of the most controversial in American history. Examining the liberal movements of the era as well as those that opposed them, this volume offers analyses of the rhetoric of leaders, including those of the civil rights movement, the Chicano movement, the gay rights movement, second-wave feminism, and conservative resistance groups. It also features an introduction that summarizes much of the significant research done by communication scholars on dissent in the 1960s and 1970s. This time period is still a fertile area of study, and this book provides insights into the era that are both provocative and illuminating, making it an essential read for anyone looking to learn more about this time in America.
[more]