In Angry Public Rhetorics, Celeste Condit explores emotions as motivators and organizers of collective action-a theory that treats humans as "symbol-using animals" to understand the patterns of leadership in global affairs-to account for the way in which anger produced similar rhetorics in three ideologically diverse voices surrounding 9/11: Osama bin Laden, President George W. Bush, and Susan Sontag. These voices show that anger is more effective for producing some collective actions, such as rallying supporters, reifying existing worldviews, motivating attack, enforcing shared norms, or threatening from positions of power; and less effective for others, like broadening thought, attracting new allies, adjudicating justice across cultural norms, or threatening from positions of weakness. Because social anger requires shared norms, collectivized anger cannot serve social justice. In order for anger to be a force for global justice, the world's peoples must develop shared norms to direct discussion of international relations. Angry Public Rhetorics provides guidance for such public forums.

The increased attention currently being paid to women's reproductive health issues has produced a corresponding interest in the role that communication plays in promoting better health care. Groundbreaking and comprehensive, this book is the first systematic examination of the major types and forms of messages about women's reproductive health - medical, social scientific and public - and the degree to which these messages compare with and contradict each other. Within the broad framework of communication, a range of women's health issues are examined in this book from political, historical, technological and feminist perspectives. The issues examined include: abortion; infertility; drug and alcohol use in pregnancy; childbirth; AIDS; menstruation and menopause.

Philosophers and historians often treat fundamental concepts like equality as if they existed only as fixed ideas found solely in the canonical texts of civilization. In "Crafting Equality," Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites argue that the meaning of at least one key word--equality--has been forged in the day-to-day pragmatics of public discourse.
Drawing upon little studied speeches, newspapers, magazines, and other public discourse, Condit and Lucaites survey the shifting meaning of equality from 1760 to the present as a process of interaction and negotiation among different social groups in American politics and culture. They make a powerful case for the critical role of black Americans in actively shaping what equality has come to mean in our political conversation by chronicling the development of an African-American rhetorical community. The story they tell supports a vision of equality that embraces both heterogeneity and homogeneity as necessary for maintaining the balance between liberty and property.
A compelling revision of an important aspect of America's history, "Crafting Equality" will interest anyone wanting to better understand the role public discourse plays in affecting the major social and political issues of our times. It will also interest readers concerned with the relationship between politics and culture in America's increasingly multi-cultural society.

An indispensable text--now revised and expanded for the digital age--this volume showcases some of the most important work by contemporary rhetorical theorists. The introduction and section openers frame major problems and questions facing the field. Topics include the epistemological status of rhetoric, how rhetorical address shapes public responses to social and political controversies, the shifting contexts of public communication, how theorists have negotiated the tensions between modernist and postmodernist considerations, mass media, and the relationship between rhetoric and traditionally marginalized groups. A wide range of voices from the 1970s to today are represented, including both classic essays and alternative approaches extending beyond the traditional borders of communication studies. New to This Edition *Reflects nearly two decades of major changes in rhetorical theory and practice. *Includes 17 new articles and new sections on publics and counterpublics, rhetorical personae, and problems of political change. *Addresses the sweeping impact of the Internet and digital media on the nature of public discourse. *Shows the relevance of rhetorical theory for understanding current social issues, such as the "Black Lives Matter" movement. *Fully revised introduction, section openers, and epilogue by the editors.