Argument, Tradition, and the Currency of Authority
Reasoned Argument and Social Change
Contests in language serve as both instigator and index of social change. Controversy is best defined and understood by shifts in the networks of symbolic authority.
Southern Honor and the Politics of Civility
Charleston Law Review
Two scenes of southern honor—dueling and honor codes—sketch a connection between that ancient political virtue and the more contemporary virtue of civility. Empathy and honor are encouraged as the twin norms of civility that should be studied, advocated, and enacted.
The Stoicism of the Ideal Orator: Cicero's Hellenistic Ideal
Advances in the History of Rhetoric
A reading of De Oratore informed by Stoicism shows a complex Ciceronian theory of rhetoric. Cicero's negotiation holds speech and public action as important and fundamental acts of human individuality
Masked Dueling in the Jacksonian Press: The Adams-Calhoun Controversy
Concerning Argument
Utilizing the grammar of the duel, John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun shared public letters with attention to pennames, unveiling the President and Vice President at war in the press against each other. The appropriate modes of public representation shifted, in an era of increasing partisan distrust.
Who Wrote the Rhetoric? A Response to Brad McAdon
Advances in the History of Rhetoric
This article challenges McAdon's thesis of a fractured, inconsistent text by reexamining the historical transmission of the Rhetoric and analyzing a central passage in the work.
When Pastors Go Public: Richard Furman’s Public Letter on Slavery
Southern Communication Journal
Richard Furman turned private correspondence into a multi-audience appeal for the extension of slavery, concealing his agency and subsuming the problems of slavery under divine salvation.
Whigging Out: Controversy in the Age of Jackson
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Review essay turns to four recent works to trace the rise of the market and the emergence of rowdy democratic politics (roughly 1815-1848).
Albert Beveridge, "March of the Flag" (16 September 1898)
Voices of Democracy
Albert Beveridge linked "liberty" and "civilization" through a nationalist narrative grounded in common values subtly redefined into expansionist terms. By doing so, he created an apparently irresistable forward march for his audeince to join.