This edited volume fills a void in the literature concerning the purpose, practice, and pedagogy associated with performing rhetorical criticism. Literature regarding these issues-predominantly purpose-exists primarily as scattered journal articles and as sections within chapters of textbooks on rhetorical criticism. This book brings together 15 established rhetorical critics, each of whom offers well thought out and argued opinion pieces that stress the more personal nature of criticism. The purpose of this book is to serve as a disciplinary resource, and as a teaching and learning aid. Accessibility across areas of expertise and experience is stressed in this book. Critics range from junior faculty to emeritus, and represent a broad spectrum of views on criticism. In this sense the book offers a snapshot of the views of a wide swath of successfully practicing, contemporary rhetorical critics.

In Rhetoric and Community, seventeen contributors explore an area of growing scholarly interest-how rhetoric defines, rallies, polarizes, and marginalizes specific communities. The contributors consider such contentious issues as how individuals are forged into communities, what sustains constructive communities, how communities become fragmented, and what leads to divisions of race, class, and gender, the rhetoric of hatred and violence, or failures of public discussion to resolve common problems. The volume creates its own dialogue through seven case studies, each including an interpretive essay and response. The studies range from historical investigations of feminist and African American communities, to commentaries on military decision making and the rhetoric of war, to reflections on contemporary artistic and scientific communities. Unified by their common interest in discourse and community, all revolve around the same essential questions: How do communities define themselves rhetorically? How do they construct and promote their distinctive worldviews? How do they position themselves in relation to other communities and to society at large? How does rhetoric promote unity or fragmentation? The answers that emerge are as varied as the subjects considered. All the essays contribute new understandings of how rhetoric not only reflects but also shapes the character of specific communities and their place in society.

In an era increasingly marked by polarized and unproductive political debates, this volume makes the case for a renewed emphasis on teaching speech and debate, both in and outside of the classroom. Speech and debate education leads students to better understand their First Amendment rights and the power of speaking. It teaches them to work together collaboratively to solve problems, and it encourages critical thinking, reasoned and fact-based argumentation, and respect for differing viewpoints in our increasingly diverse and global society. Highlighting the need for more emphasis on the ethics and skills of democratic deliberation, the contributors to this volume-leading scholars, teachers, and coaches in speech and debate programs around the country-offer new ideas for reinvigorating curricular and co-curricular speech and debate by recovering and reinventing their historical mission as civic education. Combining historical case studies, theoretical reflections, and reports on programs that utilize rhetorical pedagogies to educate for citizenship, Speech and Debate as Civic Education is a first-of-its-kind collection of the best ideas for reinventing and revitalizing the civic mission of speech and debate for a new generation of students. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Jenn Anderson, Michael D. Bartanen, Ann Crigler, Sara A. Mehltretter Drury, David A. Frank, G. Thomas Goodnight, Ronald Walter Greene, Taylor W. Hahn, Darrin Hicks, Edward A. Hinck, Jin Huang, Una Kimokeo-Goes, Rebecca A. Kuehl, Lorand Laskai, Tim Lewis, Robert S. Littlefield, Allan D. Louden, Paul E. Mabrey III, Jamie McKown, Gordon R. Mitchell, Catherine H. Palczewski, Angela G. Ray, Robert C. Rowland, Minhee Son, Sarah Stone Watt, Melissa Maxcy Wade, David Weeks, Carly S. Woods, and David Zarefsky.