Rhetorical Memory and Delivery Classical Concepts for Contemporary Composition and Communication

Why has classical rhetoric been a subject of such growing interest for the past ten years? Because the most exciting work in classical rhetoric has asked us to rethink classical concepts in modern terms. What's been missing, at least in book-length form, is a scholarly rethinking of rhetorical memory and delivery. As many scholars have been noting in their work for some time now, three of five classical issues -- invention, arrangement, and style -- have dominated rhetorical studies while the other two -- memory and delivery -- have largely been misunderstood or ignored. Re-examined in light of recent research on orality, literacy, and electronic technology, rhetorical memory and delivery issues can become not only central to the field but also key to the continued interest in classical rhetoric. Bringing together national scholars from a variety of related disciplines in which rhetorical memory and delivery issues matter, this collection is the only volume that examines classical and contemporary interpretations of rhetorical memory and delivery in depth and detail.

Contents: Preface. W.B. Horner, Introduction. J.F. Reynolds, Memory Issues in Composition Studies. K.E. Welch, Reconfiguring Writing and Delivery in Secondary Orality. S. Crowley, Modern Rhetoric and Memory. V. Allen, The Faculty of Memory. R.J. Connors, Actio: A Rhetoric of Written Delivery (Iteration Two). S. Dragga, The Ethics of Delivery. J.D. Bolter, Hypertext and the Rhetorical Canons. J.I. Middleton, Oral Memory and the Teaching of Literacy: Some Implications from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. D. Marc, Mass Memory: The Past in the Age of Television. B.E. Gronbeck, The Spoken and the Seen: The Phonocentric and Ocularcentric Dimensions of Rhetorical Discourse. S.L. Helsley, A Special Afterword to Graduate Students in Rhetoric.

John Frederick Reynolds