Shows
The Podcast of PodcastsS1/E6 -- Dr. Mary Hedengren of Mere RhetoricYou can click here download a PDF copy of the transcript for this episode. Each episode in season 1 interviews an academic podcast in the fields of Rhetoric, Writing, and Composition or Communications. This episode is a conversation with guest Dr. Mary Hedengren of the podcast Mere Rhetoric. Dr. Hedengren is a Lecturer at the University of Houston at Clear Lake.2022-02-1136 min
Mere RhetoricRSQ--Journal Roundup!What do a mid-century photographer, a fresh new work, politics and poop jokes, solitary confinement and a music video all have in common? Why it must be time for a rhetoric journal roundup! This week we are going to take a little journey through the quarter’s last issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly, otherwise known as the RSQ. The RSQ is the official publication of the Rhetorical Society of America, otherwise know as the RSA. So the RSA published the RSQ and now it’s time for the intro for you-know-who! [intro] Welc...2020-08-2013 minMere RhetoricJames Berlin “Contemporary Composition: the Major Pedagogical Theories.”Some time ago, I was asked by listener Sarah Rumsey to do a podcast on composition theory. That’s a doozy of a topic, so I read a lot, I poked around, even pulled together a couple drafts, but couldn’t find the balance of breadth and depth to do this subject justice. So I gave up. Ah, clever listener, you know I didn’t really give up, because this is Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history and I am Mary Hedengren and ins...2019-06-1110 minMere RhetoricThe Rise of Writing (Deborah Brandt)Welcome to Mere R the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary H and if you grew up in the eighties and nineties, like I did, then you might remember a series of posters in your school and public library. Celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker,A-Rod and, of course, Lavar Burton would be posed with a book, smiling, encouraging you to read. They were all readers, and so should you, because being a reader was a worthy identity. Deborah Brandt, in her decades of interviews with peopl...2019-01-1608 minMere RhetoricThe Other Eight Attic Orators: AntiphonWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and I’d like you to think a little about the types of writing you’ve done in the past, oh, let us say, year. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably written breezy email, stern syllabi, obscure academic texts and pun-based posts on Reddit that didn’t get nearly the number of upvotes as they deserve. Now what if a random, oh, say 12% of what you wrote was preserved and no one who knew...2018-02-2110 minMere RhetoricThe Meaningful Writing ProjectWelcome to MR the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history It’s the start of another semester, which, for me, means a season of wonder. I wonder about who my students will be. I wonder whether my schedule will be crushingly busy. Mostly, though, I wonder how my students will react to the syllabi and assignments that I have lovingly crafted. Will they understand the instructions? Will they learn what I hope they will? Will they find it meaningful? Many compositionists have...2018-02-0807 minMere RhetoricSteven Mailloux--Rhetorical PowerWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, terms and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and I’ve been reading A Christmas Carol this holiday season because I’m playing Mrs. Crachit in a community theatre production. And wow. There is a story behind that. But becaue I was interested in The christmas carol, so I started reading The Man Who Invented Christmas, Les Standiford’s history of Dickens’s masterpeice. I was surprised to hear how A Christmas Carol had solidified Christmas as we know it, a home-and-family holiday ra...2017-12-1106 minMere RhetoricInventing the University--David Bartholomae[intro] Welcome to MR the podcast for beginngs and insiders aboutt he ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren. This last week I graded my students’ rhetorical analyses. For many of them, this was the first time they had been asked to write a rhetorical analysis and this assignment always makes me nervous. I give them sample papers. We practice writing a rhetorical analysis together. We discuss in depth examples and abuses of ethos, logos, and pathos, but many of them struggle tremendously. I know I could write a 3-page rhetorical anal...2017-11-1407 minMere RhetoricHalloween special: Freud, the Uncanny and "The Sandman"Weeeeellllcommmme to Meeeeeereeee Rhetoooooric! It’s our annual Halloween episode, which means a little bit of the people, ideas and movements who have shaped rhetorical history, but mostly a ghost story. This year, we’re going with our first not-MR-James story. Don’t worry--there are still intials--but first--to business. If you’re going to talk about ghost stories and influential thinkers, you won’t dig long until you come across Freud’s contribution, a little piece called “The Uncanny.” You might not peg Sigmund Freud as a connoisseur of boogeymen, but he was capital-f freaked capital-o out by...2017-10-2523 minMere RhetoricEngaged Writers & Dynamic Disciplines PodcastWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and every semester, I feel like it’s New Year’s Day. “This semester,” I say, “everything’s going to be different.” I revise my classes, everything from switching two minor assignments to rehauling the entire curriculum. I try to create assignments that will catch my students’ attention, prepare them for their other classes, and, because I teach dozens of students, be interesting to grade. But how do I know if the assignments...2017-10-1807 minMere RhetoricThe Other Eight: AndocidesAndocides (An-DOS-id-dees) Do you remember in the 90s when there was this huge “thug life” thing going on? Shady types getting money doing shady things. Andocides, the 5th century BCE rhetor, would have fit fell into that world. Even though he may have been acquainted with Socrates, he was more interested in roving with his friends of rabble-rousers. He was born to wealth and lived as what one editor called “a hot-headed young man-about-town with more money than sense” (321). His carefree life came to a hard stop after a significa...2017-10-1107 minMere RhetoricCollege Composition and CommunicationWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Uh, I guess including recent history, because today we’re going to talk about the February 2017 issue of College Composition and Communication as our “journal of the month” summary. This issue, as editor Jonathan Alexander points out, “takes up the notion of the ‘personal’ in a variety of ways” (436), departing from what we might think of as “composition as usual.” The articles in it include thinking about students who are full-time workers, students who have disablities, and indigenous methodology. 2017-10-0408 minMere RhetoricSelf: Technology and Literacy in the 21st CenturyWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and today I want to start with a walk down memory lane Remember laser discs? You might not be old enough to, but I do. I remember my seventh grade science classroom had a laserdisc player and we watched just a couple of films, brilliantly bright documentaries about butterflies or some other medium-appropriate topic. I don’t remember the topic, only that it was beauitlful. But I do remember that we on...2017-09-2009 minMere RhetoricRoberts-Miller: Demagoguery and DemocracyWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, and I’ve had a hard time getting started on this one. Sometimes I procrastinate an episode because I don’t want to get into an idea or movement that is potentially stupidfaced. Other times, I’m nervous about doing a great work a disservice in doing a stupidfaced episode. This is one of those times. Patricia Roberts-Miller was one of my mentors at the University of Texas...2017-09-1308 minMere RhetoricThe Other Eight: AeschinesDon’t you love those group adventure movies? You know, the ones with a ragtag group of misfits who each have their special skill--Ocean’s 11, the Great Escape, Power Rangers? Rhetoric had that too and they were called the Canon of Ten of the Ten Attic Orators. Like most canonical lists, they weren’t clumped together until they well and dead. Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace compiled what’s called the Alexandrian Canon including these ten hotshots of the 5th and 4th century BCE. Later, a scholar who was probably not Plutarch, called the Psuedo-Plutarch, wrote “The Lives of t...2017-09-0604 minMere RhetoricRSQ Special Issue: Non-human Animal RhetoricsThis last year I adopted a dog, a scruffy grey schnauzer mix. I call him Pip. I talk to Pip all the time. But I don’t expect Pip to talk back to me, and I don’t think about what Pip calls himself. Maybe I should. The rhetorical power of non-human animals, this week on Mere Rhetoric. Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginner and indisers about the people, ideas and movements who have shaped rhetprical history. I’m Mary Hedengren Today we start a new type of episode of Mere...2017-08-3008 minMere RhetoricMere Rhetoric will return August 2017!Just checking in to let you know that new episodes of Mere Rhetoric are just around the corner. I've moved to a new institution and we've been figuring out how to set up a recording studio, but I think it's time to just get started making episodes the old fashioned way--in my office with a blanket over my head to muffle the sound.2017-08-0100 minMere RhetoricReading Chinese Fortune CookieWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas people and movements who have shaped rehtorical history. Before we get started, big announcement: Rerecordings are over! We’ve re-recorded over 80 episodes here in the studio thanks to the Humanities Media Project at the University of Texas. That’s an incredible feat and now that we’re done, there’s no more reruns, at least for a while. We’ve had new ones interspersed yeah, but now it’s all new from here on out. The other news is that having defended my dissertation and finished my time here...2016-11-0210 minMere RhetoricVisual Rhetoric: Halloween Special "The Mezzotint" Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and a big thanks to the Humanities Media Project at the University of Texas for support for this show. Also thanks to Jacob in the booth. Today, All Hallow’s Eve is upon us and it’s been a long time since I attempted some terrible British accents, which means it’s time for the Mere Rhetoric HALLOWEEN SPECIAL [thunder sounds? Screeching cat? What have you.] But first, some background. When you...2016-10-2632 minMere RhetoricRhetorical Situation (NEW and IMPROVED!)Shout out to Daniel T Richards to wrote in to me asking for a podcast about Rhetorical Situations. Couldn’t be more pleased to oblige a fan, if you have a request for an episode or a question or comment, feel free to email me at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com and I’d love to see what I can do, but Daniel asked for rhetorical situations and there’s no time but the present, eh? so let’s get it started with a couple of clips, eh? Churchill, Henry V, and Aragon. Why are these such great sp...2016-10-1911 minMere RhetoricWriting Studies Research in PracticeWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and outsider about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Today we’re going to talk about the method to the madness, if madness were writing studies research. That’s right, we’re going to talking about a little edited volume called Writing studies Research in PRactice and you never knew methodology could be so fun. But first, if you’re a regularly listener to the show, can I recommend you get on iTunes or whereever you find your podcasts and give Mere Rhetoric a review...2016-10-1209 minMere RhetoricLonginus and the SublimeWelcome Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Today's episode is brought to you by the Humanities Media Project and viewers like you, because today is a listener-suggested topic. Today we’re going to talk about Longinus, which is to say we’re going to talk about On the Sublime,which is to say we're going to talk about the sublime. We don’t know anything about Longinus except that he wrote On the Sublime, and, if we’re going to be strictly honest, we don’t kn...2016-10-0709 minMere RhetoricGeorge CampbellWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, we have Jacob in the booth and we’re here together because of the support of the Humanities Media Project at the University of Texas at Austin. And the reason we’ve gathered together in the beautiful recording studio in the basement of Mezes Hall is to talk about the work of George Campbell. Campbell, like his contemporary Hugh Blair, was a rhetorician-preacher and he believed that he could teach preache...2016-09-2810 minMere RhetoricHabermas and the Public Sphere (NEW and IMPROVED)abermas and public sphere theory Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movemnts who have shaped rhetorical history. special thanks to the rhetoric society of america student chatper at the university of texas at Austin. I’m Mary Hedengren and today I’m joined by Laura Thain. Have you spent much time thinking about coffee? If you’re a grad student, the answer is probably yes, but really do you spend much time thinking about what coffee did, especially coffee shops, especially in Europe? Coffee houses w...2016-09-2511 minMere RhetoricHabermas and The Public Sphere (NEW AND IMPROVED)Habermas and public sphere theory Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movemnts who have shaped rhetorical history. special thanks to the rhetoric society of america student chatper at the university of texas at Austin. I’m Mary Hedengren and today I’m joined by Laura Thain. Have you spent much time thinking about coffee? If you’re a grad student, the answer is probably yes, but really do you spend much time thinking about what coffee did, especially coffee shops, especially in Europe? Coffee houses w...2016-09-1400 minMere RhetoricKen HylandWelcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Thanks to the Humanities Media Project at the University of Texas of Austin for the support for this podcast. Also, thanks to Jacob in the booth who makes these podcasts sound so great. Okay, when we say rhetorical history, we know that rhetoric is a big of a swiper discipline, right? I mean, we’ve had philosophers featured on the podcast, educational psychologists, those sorts, and today we get to talk about an applied linguistics, Ken...2016-09-0709 minMere RhetoricAugustine On Christian Teaching (NEW AND IMPROVED)On Christian Teaching Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movement that have shaped rhetorical history. Big thanks to the University of Texas’ Humanities Media Project for supporting the podcast. Today we get to talk about the saint who brought classical rhetoric into the realm of Christian homiletics. Augustine was a fourth century saint whose life in someways demonstrates the great sea-changes in the Mediterranean world of rhetoric, education and religion. His father was pagan, his mother was Christian and young Augustine describes hims...2016-08-3110 minMere RhetoricEpideictic Rhetoric (new and improved!)Epideictic Rhetoric Intro and rebroadcast note Today we’ll be talking about epideictic rhetoric because it’s probably my favorite of the three branches of Aristotelian rhetoric and it’s my birthday. It being my birthday actually has a lot to do with epideictic rhetoric because birthday speeches are one of the classic examples of epideictic rhetoric, the others being wedding toasts, eulogies, and Independence Day orations, except I think the people who came up with that last one probably lived a century ago because I have never attended an Indepe...2016-08-2410 minMere RhetoricSaving Persuasion (new and improved!)Saving Persausion Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Today we continue our month-long festival of all things deliberative rhetoric with a discussion of Saving Persuasion by Bryan Garston. One thing exciting about his book is that it isn’t written by a rhetorician. Nope, not really. It’s written by a political scientist, which makes rhetoricians excited for two reasons. First, we always get excited when someone outside of our field thinks of us, much less praise...2016-08-1705 minMere RhetoricIsocrates' Encomium of Helen (new and improved!)Welcome to MR podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, terms and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. We’re beholden to the humanities media project at the university of Texas for support for this re-recording that sounds so good. And This is a re-recording, so recognize that it might not fit into a normal timeline. This was supposed to come after the Encomium ofHelen written by Gorgias. It’s a come back written by my favorite sophist--Isocrates. Isocrates had a complaint that Gorgias has not written a true encomium, but an apologia--a defense. He on...2016-08-1008 minMere RhetoricKillingsworth (Review day!)Review/Killingsworth Welcome to MR the podcast about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Today we’re going to be talking about what are perhaps some old ideas, but from a fresh angle. What if the way we thought about traditional rhetoric in a more modern context? But first, let me give a shout out to the Humanities Media Project, whose support lets us record these podcasts in such sound-proof-room splendor, and Jacob in the booth, who not only lets me know when I’ve muttered my lines, but edits it up so...2016-08-0309 minMere RhetoricKant (new and improved!)Kant podcast Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have defined rhetorical history. Today is a re-record from when we were doing our "villians of rhetoric" series, but since we just recently did an episode where I apologized for being too hard on Kant, here's the original castigation. Enjoy! Today we continue our podcast series on villians of rhetoric with Kant. As in Immanual Kant, and not ‘I can’t stnd him” I’ve actually been to Kant’s hometown, Koh...2016-07-2709 minMere RhetoricGorgias's Encomium of Helen (new and improved!)Audio: Gorgias_Encomium_of_Helen.mp3 Just a heads up, this is a re-recording of an earlier podcast, so it's not chronologically accurate. Like, I didn't just submit my dissertation, I got it approved, defended and bound on linen paper. Boom! Okay, anyway, that's the warning, but really, if you've recently finished a dissertation and think its as interesting as I think mine is, you should email us at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com. That way I can be all, "hey, that's great!" and maybe we can do an episode on it. There you go. W...2016-07-2008 minMere RhetoricBootstraps--Victor VillanuevaBootstraps, Victor Villanueva What does a rhetorician look like? When you imagine a rhetorician, maybe you see some white-toga-ed Roman, crossing his legs under his seat, holding a stylus to his chin. Or maybe you imagine a tweedy early twentieth century rhetorician, shaking out a newspaper and frowning. Or maybe you even imagine a contemporary rhetorician, presenting at the Rhetoric Society of America in front of a powerpoint presentation. But here’s a question for you--did you imagine a white rhetorician? Today on Mere Rhetoric, we talk about Victor Villanueva’s book B...2016-07-1314 minMere RhetoricGenuine Teachers of This ArtWelcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Today or rather, the day I wrote this, I got some bad news, so to make up for it, I get to talk about Jeffrey Walker, who is one of my favorite people ever, and I get to talk about one of my favorite books, too, his Genuine Teachers of This Art, subtitled Rhetorical Education in Antiquity. Basically Walker’s arguing that rhetoric as a field is, at its very core, pedagogical. It’s not just...2016-07-0607 minMere RhetoricStasis Theory (New and improved!)[SHAKERS & INTRO SONG] Welcome to Mere Rhetoric. A podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements, and terms that have shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren and today, I'm going to finally follow up on a promise that I made earlier. Do you remember when we were talking about Hermogenes? The hairy hearted hero who came up with a lot of extra ways of dealing with things. Well I said back then that I would come back and talk with you about stasis theory which is pretty fantastic and guess what? Now I'm finally...2016-06-2908 minMere RhetoricCanagarajah (New and improved!)[acoustic guitar music] Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people, and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren, and every time we do Mere Rhetoric, I hope you feel like it's a cozy introduction to some of the people who have been part of rhetorical history at different times and places. But it's rare that I actually get to talk about somebody who I've sat next to, and I've eaten lunch with. And in fact, I got to eat lunch twice with today's topic, Suresh Canagarajah. Canagarajah is k...2016-06-2209 minMere RhetoricSusan Peck MacDonald (NEW AND IMPROVED!)[acoustic guitar music] Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, terms, and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably somebody who's interested in the power of language. You're probably an English major or a Rhetoric and Writing major, or you're at least taking a class in it. But there are a lot of different disciplines that we've all interacted with. Whether it was a required biology class when you were an undergraduate, or a course in statistics...2016-06-1508 minMere RhetoricPhaedrus (New and Improved!)2016-06-0812 minMere RhetoricDeliberative Rhetoric (New and Improved!)Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements that have shaped rhetorical history. Contact us at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com or through Twitter @mererhetoricked. This is a rebroadcasted episode
And guys. Guys, today we address the last of the three traditional branches of rhetoric. This makes me sad. We had the Law and Order rush of judicial or forensic rhetoric and the pageantry of epideictic rhetoric and today we come to deliberative, or political rhetoric. And then we won’t have any more branches of rhetoric, because if the...2016-06-0107 minMere RhetoricOn the Orator --Cirerco (New and Improved!)Crisis looms in ancient Rome: the uneasy triumvirate between Caesar, Pompey and Crassus rests on thin bonds that seem inevitable to break. The Senate supports Pompey, but Caesar has successfully (and illegally) conquered Gaul, winning wide-spread military support. Everything seems primed for disaster. In fact, in less than a decade, the Great Civil War, the death gasp of the Republic, will spread across the whole breadth of the empire, changing forever the political and social life of Romans. This, of course, is the best time to write a treatise on rhetoric.
Or it is if you happen...2016-05-2508 minMere RhetoricClark Rhetorical Landscapes (NEW AND IMPROVED!
Rhetorical Landscapes in America: Variations on a Theme from Kenneth Burke by Gregory Clark
Welcome to Mere rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, terms and movements that shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and if you’ve like to get in touch with me you can email me at mererhetroicpodcast @gmail.com or tweet out atmererhetoricked.
Today on Mere Rhetoric I have the weird experience of doing an episode on someone who isn’t just living, but someone who was my mentor. If you’ve ever had to do a book...2016-05-1808 minMere RhetoricLet's Make Composition Whole! --ShipkaWhat’s the difference between writing and composition? Writing, we think we know what that is: it’s maybe typing out letters on a computer screen, or maybe it’s holding a pen above a legal pad. But what if writing is bigger than that? What if it’s also the prewriting that takes place in your brain, as you drive around town or play racquetball or stare into space? And how about composition? What does that mean? It’s not just writing so could it be arranging speech, or images or even moving bodies? Is dance part of compositio...2016-05-1109 minMere RhetoricJohn Dewey Part Deuce: Democracy (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Dewey Part Deuce
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric. Or maybe welcome back, because last week we talked about John Dewey and today we’re talking about John Dewey again. You don’t have to go back and listen to the last week’s episode on Dewey and aesthetics, but if you like this, Dewey part the Deuce, then you migh want to go check out the previous episode on Dewey and the artful life. Today, today thought,we get to talk about Dewey’s political and educational contributions.
Dewey was a huge fan of dem...2016-05-0407 minMere RhetoricJohn Dewey Part 1--Art as Experience (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Dewey aesthetic
Today on Mere Rhetoric, we talk about John Dewey. John Dewey was a big ol’ deal, even back in his day. Just after his death in 1952, Hilda Neaby wrote”Dewey has been to our age what Aristotle was to the later Middle Ages, not just a philosopher, but the philosopher.”
And what does a person have to do to be compared to Aristotle? I mean to be compared in a serious way to Aristotle, because I’m like Aristotle because, you know, I enjoy olive oil on occasions, not because I’m the philosophe...2016-04-2709 minMere RhetoricThe 19th Century Harvard Reports--New and Improved!Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren, Jacob is in the booth and the Humanities Media Project is making this all possible.
Quick note: this is a rebroadcast, so you might want to take the next couple of sentences with a grain of salt. That is all. Starting…now.
We’ve spent this month talking about the villains of rhetoric, but since mere rhetoric isn’t just abtout rhetoric, today we’re going to talk about one...2016-04-2009 minMere RhetoricJeffrey Walker on the Aesthetic/EpideicticJeffrey Walker’s Aesthetic/Epideictic
Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movement who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, Samantha’s in the booth, Humanities Media Project is the sponsor and Jeff Walker is the subject. Jeffrey Walker is kind of my hero in life. I get weird around him, the way some people get around Natalie Portman or David Beckham. I came to the University of Texas, in part, because I so admired his work, but when I got here and saw him at parties...2016-04-1308 minMere RhetoricDemosthenes (New and improved!)Demosthenes
Welcome to Mere rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren. And special thanks to the Humanities media project. This is a re-recording, so you might want to take the next sentence with a grain of salt
Last week we continued our conversation of deliberative rhetoric by talking about Saving Persuasion, a contemporary book about how rhetoric doesn’t have to be rhetortricky. Today we’re going to talk about one of the figures in political rhetoric...2016-04-0611 minMere RhetoricHermogenes of Tarsus (NEW AND IMPROVED)Hermogenes of Tarsus
Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and today is a rebroadcast of an old episode, thanks to the Humanities Media Project here at the University of Texas. Hope you enjoy!
Hermogenes of Tarsus was a bit of a boy genius: he wrote many important rhetorical treatises (of which we only have sections) before he was 23 years old. And when Hermogenes was fifteen years old, in 176 AD, something remarkable happened. The phil...2016-03-3013 minMere RhetoricDissoi Logoi (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. And today I want to talk about the pedagogical tool of making kids have an argument. And an argument doesn’t just mean bickering.
Okay, even if there’s a difference between arguing and bickering , I will say, that hen I was a kid, I bickered a lot with my brother Dave. Dave is three years older than me, which meant he was farther along in school and knew more things. This bo...2016-03-2307 minMere RhetoricPerelman Part 2 --NEW!When last we left our intrepid hero, Chaim Perelman was describing universal audiences with his collaborater Lucie Obretch-Tycteta and setting up what he called the new Rhetoric. Today, we’ll talk about his solo text, The Realm of Rhetoric and critical responses to his philosophies.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Realm of Rhetoric is that is it around a fourth of the size of the New Rhetoric. I think that’s probably a function of having writing a ground-breaking magnum opus and then following it up.
Let’s start with...2016-03-2105 minMere RhetoricAudience Invoked Audience Addressed (NEW AND IMPROVED!)
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people, and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren, and this last week, I had the fantastic experience of meeting one of you. That's right, an actual listener in the actual flesh. Somebody who wasn't just one of my colleagues, or one of my friends, or my mom, who listens to this podcast. It was a really cool experience. And she was very nice and very enthusiastic, and I'm really grateful that I got the chance to meet her. But it made m...2016-03-1611 minMere RhetoricKant and the Promise of Rhetoric--Stroud (JUST PLAIN NEW!)Sometimes I make a podcast and I think, “Golly I hope I did justice by that idea, person and movement that shaped rhetorical history.” Sometimes I make a podcast on the work of someone living, like Scott Stroud’s book about John Dewey, and sometimes I make a podcast on someone dead, like Kant. If I misrepresent a dead person, who will stop me? A living one. today, on Mere rhetoric, not exactly a retraction, but a revision of a previous episode on Immanual Kant, the philosopher who has been long-identified, including by me, as diametrically opposed to the field...2016-03-1112 minMere RhetoricModern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent (NEW AND IMPROVED!)
Audio: Modern_Dogma_and_the_Rhetoric_of_Assent.mp3
In 1969 in Chicago, Illinois, a group calling themselves The Committee of 5000 Plus Against Disciplinary Procedures issued demands. They demanded that the issue of discipline would be seen in context that expulsions would be rescinded, that cases against protesting students be dropped. At the end of the list of the demands, they demanded that the failure of the Committee of the council, which is to say, the council of the University of Chicago, to respond satisfactorily to these demands by Tuesday noon March fourth will in and of itself constitute grounds for...2016-03-0911 minMere RhetoricRenaissance Debates on Rhetoric (NEW AND IMPROVED)Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements and people who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and today we get to continue on in our theme of the villains of rhetoric. Today though, instead of just focusing on one person like Raymus or Hobbes. We get to talk about three and the reason why we get to talk about three is because a fantastic book that Wayne A. Rebhorn wrote. It's called “Renaissance Debates on Rhetoric.” This is a great volume. It's a compilation of a lot of short pieces by a l...2016-03-0211 minMere RhetoricProgymnasmata (NEW AND IMPROVED)When you were learning math, I bet you didn’t start by trying to solve P versus NP. When you were learning Spanish, I bet you didn’t start with creating your own translation of Don Quixote. When you were learning to write, did you start with writing thirty-page rhetorical analyses and speeches? Probably not.
The ancient Greeks thought it was probably not such a good idea to start out young rhetors on writing full speeches, so they came up with a series of exercises that teachers could lead their students through, exercises that would help...2016-02-2409 minMere RhetoricPerelman Part One: Olbrechts-Tyteca and the New Rhetoric (JUST PLAIN NEW!)Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements that have shaped rhetorical history. It’s a new year and a new semester here at the University of Texas, and it’s time for some new years resolutions. We got a lot of old episodes re-recorded last semester, and by golly I’m glad we did, but it’s time to get some fresh episodes out. So, thanks to the Humanities Media Project here at the University of Texas at Austin, we’re going to have some brand new episodes. Okay, we had like six n...2016-02-2311 minMere RhetoricJames Berlin (NEW AND IMPROVED)James Berlin
Welcome to MR. I’m Mary Hedengren, Jacob is in the Booth and we’re supported by the Humanities Media Project and UT Austin.
Was English in an identity crisis in the 80s and 90s? Maybe. But it’s certain that it thought it was. Interdisciplinary projects such as cultural studies and the voluntary expulsion of groups like English language and composition from English departments was inspiring a lot of ink in the PMLA and other journals and conferences between such illuminaries as Gerald Graff and Stanley Fish. And...2016-02-1809 minMere RhetoricQuintilian (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements,
and people who shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren.
Quintilian was a transitional figure of rhetoric. Born in a Roman province of Spain to a Spanish
family at around 35 CE, he lived both geographically and temporally at the peripheries of the
Roman Empire. Quintilian was, as everyone was, influenced by Cicero and the Greek instructors,
Progymnasmata, which we've talked about in an earlier episode. He was deeply concerned with
questions about the education...2016-02-1011 minMere RhetoricHobbes (NEW AND IMPROVED!)[guitar music]
Welcome to New Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, events, and ideas that have shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren and today I actually get to respond to a listener who wrote in, named Greg Gibby. And Greg wrote in saying that he would love to know some sort of ranking system; some way to see who are some of the most important figures in rhetorical history and sort of how they might relate to each other. So because of Greg, for the next month, we are going to be counting d...2016-02-0307 minMere RhetoricForensic Rhetoric (NEW AND IMPROVED!)And today we have news: ast week something finally happened, something I always dreamed of, ever since I was 18 years old—I got called up for jury duty. I’m thrilled to be able to do my civic duty, not just because since I was 18 years old I’ve been mainlining old episodes of Law and Order, but also because because it gives me a front row seat to the world of forsensic rhetoric. Today on Mere rhetoric, we’re going to talk about the illustrious history of forsensic rhetoric. But first just a reminder that you can subscribe to this...2016-01-2712 minMere RhetoricSor Juana (NEW AND IMPROVED)Sor Juana
Juana Ramirez y Asbaje had a lot going against her from the beginning. She was born to unmarried parents and her father took off after two siblings were born. Being illegitimate with no dowery in 17th century Mexico was not a recipe for an easy life, but Juana had one thing going for her—she was very, very talented. Her overall brainyness was evident form her eariliet childhood. She used to sneak off to go read, in a time and culture when few people of her class and sex were literate, and...2016-01-2008 minMere RhetoricSpeech Act Debates (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Speech acts debate
Mere rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that have shaped the rhetorical world.
Probably one of the best titles of any book in rhetorical history is J. L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words. In fact, this is often what I tell people is what rhetoric is all about: doing things with words. But actually, Austen had something more in mind when he prepared these 12 lectures for Harvard Universitiy in 1955. All words do something—encourage, persuade...2016-01-1309 minMere RhetoricGenre TheoryRemember when genres were easy? Second grade, we start learning about genres, about fiction and non-fiction (in fact one of my sister’s childhood brushes with literary greatness was asking whether Ray Bradbury enjoyed writing fiction or non-fiction best in a Q&A session after a reading.) A little while later, we learned more sophisticated genres—novel, poetry, drama, satire, fable, book report, coming-of-age story, faux epistolary, application letter, ethnogenesis, thesis. We tend to take genres for granted in our everyday, and even scholarly lives. But how do we learn to identify a genre when we see it? What goes...2016-01-0610 minMere RhetoricRSA 2014 (NEW AND IMPROVED!)[INTRO MUSIC]
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric: a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements, and people that have shaped rhetorical history. I'm Mary Hedengren.
Last time we did a podcast, I was at the Rhetorical Society of America's biannual meeting in San Antonio. Well now that the conference is over and everybody is home, I thought I might go through a few of the things that happened at this conference.
The conference lasted from Friday all the way to Monday afternoon, and included a lot of interesting presentations. If you've never be...2015-12-3007 minMere RhetoricRichard Weaver
Weclome to mere rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, terms and movement who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and today we’re talking about two influencial chapters from one book: Richard Weavers’ “The Ethics of Rhetoric”
The Ethics of rhetoric was written in 1953, and it definitely feels like it and Weaver was Southern and definitely feels like it. Even though he spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, with Wayne Booth, he kept his summers free to go down to a farm that he kept wher...2015-12-2106 minMere RhetoricRamus (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Welcome back to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, we today we continue our exploration of the baddies of rhetoric.
Last week we talked about Thomas Hobbes and his rhetoric-hating ways for our first villain of rhetoric. Next in our series of the badnicks of rhetoric is Peter Ramus, or, if you will, Petrus Ramus. Ramus came before Hobbes, and he’s definitely one of the people that rhetoricians point to as a villain
As Jam...2015-12-1710 minMere RhetoricThe Idea of the Writing Center (NEW AND IMPROVED!)
Welcome to mere rhetoric. The podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren
The original recording of this podcast in 2014 was especially timely because we’re going to talk about an important article that came out in College English 30 years ago this year: Stephen North’s Idea of a Writing Center
This essay has been hugely influencial in the rapidly growin and professionalizing field of writing center studies. Back in 1984, though, writing centers couldn’t get no respect. “W...2015-12-1409 minMere RhetoricPaulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Paulo Freire
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, we have Samantha and Morgan in the booth and today we get to talk about one of the most influencial figures in the so-called “social turn” of composition.
Paulo Freire was born into a middle-class family, but the Depression hit them hard, and soon he was familiar enough with the very worst of poverty. He noted, later in life, that his poverty, his hunger impacted...2015-12-1110 minMere RhetoricFoucault: Discipline and Punish (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, we have Samantha and Morgan in the booth and we’re all three of us different people—why?
Who determines who you are? Why do you pursuit the things that are important to you, whther they be published articles, a thin and athletic physique or a reputation of being a decent human being? Michael Foucault addresses the idea of forming “docile bodies” in Discipline and Punish.
This book starts with...2015-12-0711 minMere RhetoricLee Ann Carroll: Rehearsing New Roles (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. We have Samantha in the booth and I’m Mary Hedengren. Today
I want you to do a little experiment for me. Think back to what you were writing five years ago. If you happen to be at your computer or the scrapbook of everything you’ve ever written, you can even pull up your writing. If not, just go ahead and meditate. Do you need a moment? It’s okay, I’ll wait. Now then—...2015-12-0506 minMere RhetoricFour Master Tropes (NEW AND IMPROVED!
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movement that have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and the University of Texas’ Humanities Media Project supports the podcast and
A few weeks ago I was at an excellent lecture by Collin Brooke here at the university of Texas and he was talking about applying the master tropes to different models of networks. Then I thought--by Jove, the Master Tropes! What a brilliant idea for a podcast! So with all deference to Dr. Brooke, let’s dive into...2015-12-0210 minMere RhetoricHabitus (NEW AND IMPROVED!)
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movement that have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengre and I’m grateful for the University of Texas’ Humanities Media Project for supporting the podcast.
MOST mornings, I wake up, put on some stretchy pants and very bright t-shirt and strap on my phone for a run, because for some reason you need a phone to go running. Why do I do that? Is it because I am a master of my fate, and I choose my...2015-11-2806 minMere RhetoricErasmus (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Erasmus
Mere rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that have shaped the rhetorical world.
Erasmus was born in Holland, probably in 1466, and was orphaned by the time he was twenty. This meant that instead of getting to go to university, he was shuttled off to monk school, which, while he was ordained, was really not his cup of tea. Instead, he became a “wandering scholar” eventually wandering to England where he became chummy with the likes of Thomas More and the other humanists.
2015-11-2708 minMere RhetoricAmerican Indian Rhetorics of Survivance (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Welcome to Mere Rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren. This week we celebrate Thanksgiving, which is a time for food, family and remembering that this land was forcibly occupied from a variety of disenfranchised indigenous people. So in honor of that tradition, today we’ll be talking about a book called American Indian Rhetorics of Survivance, edited by Ernest Stromberg.
First off, we might have to define a couple of the words in the title, which is actually the same...2015-11-2306 minMere RhetoricCourtly Rhetoric (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Courtly political rhetoric
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements that have shaped rhetorical history. Today we continue our month-long celebration of deliberative rhetoric by looking back half a millennium to the European Renaissance.
Back in the European Renaissance, politics looked different. There were no brightly colored billboards along the side of the freeway on-ramp, no official newspaper endorsements of candidates, no candidate debates. There were, in fact, no candidates. That is not to say that there was no politics. Instead of wo...2015-11-2010 minMere RhetoricCrosswhite's Rhetoric of Reason (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Remember when you were a freshman and you took first year critical reasoning? Or in high school, when you took the AP thinking exam?
Of course not, because we don’t really teach philosophy or critical thinking. What we do teach is writing.
[intro]
Welcome to MR the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements and people who have shaped rhetorical history. today we’ll be talking about the mid nineties text “Rhetoric of Reason,” winner of the 1997 MLA Mina Shannassy book prize.
Titles...2015-11-1708 minMere RhetoricEkphrasis (NEW AND IMPROVEDEkphrasis
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and, ah, here I am in my newly redecorated research cube. I’ve taped grey and yellow chevron wrapping paper over the old horrific 90s wallpaper and the books that completely fill my bookshelf are organized—somewhat. The tiny red and green Loeb editions look like Christmas decorations among the others and one whole shelf of books is tattooed with library barcodes. My door is propped open by the extra hard wood c...2015-11-1212 minMere RhetoricHugh Blair (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Hugh Blair
Welcome to MR. Rebroadcast note
Today in honor of Scotland voting to stick with the rest of the United Kingdom, we’re going to talk about Hugh Blair. That’s right-- a Scottish rhetorician to honor the Scottish referendum. Hugh Blair was a bit of a rising star. He was a Presbyterian clergyman, but the top of the top of Scottish clergymen, eventually getting the High Church of St. Giles: the highest honor for the men of the cloth in Scotland. Once you’ve peaked out in divinity...2015-11-1009 minMere RhetoricRhetoric Before and Beyond the Greeks (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Rhetoric Before and Beyond the Greeks
I’m Mary Hedengren, Samantha and Morgan are in the booth and this is Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. But what does that even mean?
When we talk about the rhetorical tradition on this podcast, we actually don’t mean the rhetorical tradition. We mean the tradition of a very small group of people living mostly in one city in one corner of the Mediterranean. We mean Athenian rhetorical tradition, which, no doubt, has h...2015-11-0508 minMere RhetoricMetanoia NEW AND IMPROVEDMetanoia
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, Samantha’s the booth, Humanities Media Project sponsored us and I have nothing to regret.
Remember back when we talked about kairos? Just to remind you, here’s a poem, a Greek poem, translated by Jeffrey Walker, explain. This poem is ekphersis, a piece of writing that describes a piece of art, in this case a sculpture of Kairos done by Lysippos of Sicyon. The rest exp...2015-11-0206 minMere RhetoricHalloween Special 2015: A School StoryWelllllcome to Meeeeere Rhetooooooooric!
Ooooh, it’s Halloween week, which means here at Mere Rhetoric, we bring you a spoooooky story. Last year we explored the dark side of anonymous peer review and this year we get to talk about another scary aspect of the academic life: writing prompts. Writing prompts are, as genre theory has informed us, their own weird genre, with better and worse practices. Generally speaking, giving students a clear sense of direction in what to write while empowering them to pursue their own objectives for writing gives them a chance to become independent wr...2015-10-2919 minMere RhetoricRhetoricalityWelcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, terms and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, Samantha’s in the booth and we have a brand new episode here for you. If you like new episodes, or if you have an episode to suggest, you can email me and tell me. The email is just mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com and we’d be thrilled to hear from you. Here’s the thing, though, today’s episode isn’t on rhetoric.
It’s on rhetoricality. Psych! What, you may ask, is the...2015-10-2108 minMere RhetoricDionysius of Halicarnassus NEW AND IMPROVED!
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movement that have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and the University of Texas’ Humanities Media Project supports the podcast and
Today we’re doing a podcast on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, not least because it’s so fun to say his name. Some people just have the kind of name that makes you want to say it all out, in full. Say it with me: Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It’s lovely. Fortunately, we’ll lget to say Dionysius...2015-10-2105 minMere RhetoricAspasia (NEW AND IMPROVED!)Aspasia
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movement that have shaped rhetorical history. Big thanks to the University of Texas’ Humanities Media Project for supporting the podcast. Today we get to talk about a rhetorician who may have influenced everyone, or may not have even existed.
Aspasia is one of the most historically elusive, even mythical rhetoricians. As with Socrates, we only have second-hand accounts of her life and work, but unlike Socrates, she was a woman, which meant that much...2015-10-1308 minMere RhetoricExpressivism (NEW AND IMPROVED)!Expressivism
Doot-do-do…doot-doot-do-do…Welcome Mere rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that have shaped the rhetorical world. Special thanks to the Samantha in the booth and the Humanities Media Project for the support as we head on into the podcast. First though, I’d like to remind you to swing on over to iTunes and leave us a review. Hopefully a good review, but, you know, you have to take what you get. Or you can check out our Twitter page @mererhetoricked. Also, if you want to reach out to...2015-09-3007 minMere RhetoricErrors and Expectations (NEW and IMPROVED)Welcome Mere rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that have shaped the rhetorical world. Special thanks to the Samantha in the booth and the Humanities Media Project for the support I’m mary h and today we’re talking about Mina Shaughnessy’s book Error and Expectations
Errors and Expectations was published in 1977, but the story that led to it begins earlier, in the late 60s. After centuries of higher education being limited t the elite classes, universities began to open up. In fact, many universities, including Shaughnessy’s City Co...2015-09-2406 minMere RhetoricWhat Is Rhetoric? (NEW AND IMPROVED!)The classic, the first episode in better form! (Except this transcript is a little was-translated-by-someone-unfamiliar-with-rhetoric-and-American-politics. Thanks, Fivrr!)
What is Rhetoric?
Welcome to MereRhetoric, a podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, terms and movement that have defined the history of rhetoric. Sponsored by the University of Texas Student Chapter of the Rhetoric Society of America.
I'm Mary Hedengren at the University of Texas Austin and thank you for joining us on our inaugural podcast. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about...2015-09-1814 minMere RhetoricMetaphors We Live By
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and outsiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Send us feedback or suggestions at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com if you’d like, or go on iTunes and give us a rating—hopefullly a good one, but whatever you do... I’m Mary Hedengren and I was an English major.
We English majors are always being accused of loving metaphors. “We write clearly,” our science friends say smugly. “We don’t use any of that flowery langua...2015-09-0908 minMere RhetoricKolln/Hartwell NEW AND IMPROVED!
Welcome to Mere rhetoric, a pocast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and I’d like to take you back, back in time…
It was 1985. As Bowling for Soup would later describe the year, “there was U2 and Blondie, and Music still on MTV” And in the pages of College English a debate was raging. Two scholars, careful and smart, battling over a question that still haunts beginning composition instructors: should we teach punctuation to first year writing...2015-09-0409 minMere RhetoricKairos--NEW AND IMPROVED!
Kairos Podcast
Two definitions of time for ancient Greeks:, chromos and kairos
While chronos chucks around relatively constantly, one minute after minute hour after hours, without any particularly change, kairos is a moment of exigenence, where everything matters on timing. There’s a graph that I like about kairos that I would love to show you, but since I can’t paint you a picture, I’ll have to sing yo a song. While Chronos moves forward like this [solid pitch], Kairos starts low, comes to a fever...2015-08-3109 minMere RhetoricCanons of Rhetoric--NEW AND IMPROVED!
Canons of rhetoric
Today we’re going to talk about the canons of rhetoric (sound: boom). That’s silly. The canons of rhetoric (sound: pachabel’s canon). Okay, now this has just devolved into a morning show called something lik Zaph and the Pigman in the Mornings. The canons of rhetoric were the five parts of rhetoric that were emphasized in ancient classical rhetoric. They were canons the same way that people in literary studies might talk about whether Moby Dick or Huck Finn belongs in the canon—as essential t...2015-08-2407 minMere RhetoricKenneth Burke--NEW AND IMPROVED!
Kenneth Burke
Welcome to Mere rhetoric a podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that have shaped the rhetorical world. I’m mary h and today we’re talking about KB
Burkey was a major rhetorican who lived May 5, 1897 – November 19, 1993. Also, his middle name was Duva and his grandson wrote this song. [Cat’s in the Cradle]
But Burke didn’t always want to be a rhetorican. In fact, rhetoric was kind of...2015-08-0707 minMere RhetoricIA Richards II: The Meaning of MeaningToday, as promised, the sequel to last week’s episode on I.A. Richards. Last week we learned about Richards’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric, where he sought to redeem rhetoric from a pejorative by recognizing that every word is intimately tied to its social context. Today we get to talk about his other major work, the Meaning of Meaning. Some initial thoughts: first off, this is a somewhat cheekier title. Second, The Meaning of Meaning is always filed under the works of I.A. Richards, but actually it’s a joint effort by Richards and CK Ogden. Ogden was a...2015-08-0307 minMere RhetoricGorgias NEW AND IMPROVED!
Gorgias podcast
Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, terms and movements who have shaped Rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and I have--
Big news! Thanks the generous support of the University of Texas Humanities Project, you may notice that this is a beautiful recording. We’ve got a real microphone and not just my iPhone and a real editor and not just—me. So it sounds nice, yeah? That means we’ll be rerecording an...2015-07-3109 minMere RhetoricI.A. Richards Philosophy of Rhetoric
“Today,” I.A. Richards begins his 1936 lectures, rhetoric “is the dreariest and least profitable part of the waste that the unfortunate travel through in Freshman English! So low has Rhetoric sunk that we would do better just to dismiss it to Limbo than to trouble ourselves with it--unless we can find reason for believing that it can become a study that will minister successfully to important needs” (3). this is just what Richards sets out to do in a series of lectures at Bryn Mawr that eventually became the thin book The Philosophy of Rhetoric.
For Ric...2015-07-1007 minMere RhetoricDissoi Logoi
When I was a kid, I bickered a lot with my brother Dave. Dave is three years older than me, which meant he was farther along in school and knew more things. This bothered me, so if he said something, I said the opposite. If he said that hippos were more dangerous than lions, then I had to prove that lions were more dangerous than hippos. If he said that indoor games were better than outside, I have to prove that outside were better than inside. Sometimes, like boxers circling eachother, we would switch positions and suddenly...2015-07-0206 minMere RhetoricLord Kames
Henry Hume, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Henry Hume, Lord Kames was a distant relative as well as friend to David Hume, although they spell their names differently. David Hume changed the spelling so that his English readers would pronounce it properly. Henry Hume kept the original spelling H-O-M-E.
Unlike David Hume, Lord Kames did not go to university nor even have the benefit of a sojourn to France to broaden his education. Much more like Jane Austen’s Lizzie Bennet, Kame...2015-06-1509 minMere RhetoricDionysius of HalicarnassusToday we’re doing a podcast on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, not least because it’s so fun to say his name. Some people just have the kind of name that makes you want to say it all out, in full. Say it with me: Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It’s lovely. Fortunately, we’ll lget to say Dionysius of Halicarnassus several times today.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, being of Halicarnassus, was Greek, but he wasn’t one of the 5th century golden age Greek rhetoricians--he lived around 50-6 BC during the Roman empire. Indeed, he studied in Rome and ga...2015-05-2306 minMere RhetoricThe Rhetoric of Reason: James CrosswhiteRemember when you were a freshman and you took first year critical reasoning? Or in high school, when you took the AP thinking exam?
Of course not, because we don’t really teach philosophy or critical thinking. What we do teach is writing.
[intro]
Welcome to MR the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, movements and people who have shaped rhetorical history. today we’ll be talking about the mid nineties text “Rhetoric of Reason,” winner of the 1997 MLA Mina Shannassy book prize.
Titl...2015-05-1808 min