As people commemorate ACT UP and examine its memory in public cultures, the 2011 revival of "The Normal Heart" (TNH) and the rhetorical labor undertaken to evoke political emotionalities inside and outside of the theater provides one site for analyzing how direct action politics, both past and present, are imagined as a kairotic response to…

Baseball has enjoyed its status as the "national pastime" in part because it has been associated with democracy. To the extent that baseball, as an institution of civil religion, fosters pluralism and inclusion, it can indeed be viewed in democratic terms. In recent years, the advent of conservative Christian events called "Faith Nights" threatens…

The slogans, the effigy, and the disruption of public space reflect tactics for which AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is commonly remembered, but the occasion is somewhat unique. These protests and actions challenged the Bush and Clinton administrations' policy on HIV-positive Haitian migrants fleeing political repression in Haiti after…

Extending an important rhetorical tradition of investigating women's positioning/positionalities in the national imaginary, in society, and in the law, this essay examines how non-US citizen women and their experiences are deployed toward objectives of the US state. Specifically, I analyze the rhetorical significance of two precedent-setting…

This essay presents Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential rhetoric as an iteration of an American synecdochal sublime. Eisenhower's rhetoric sought to re-aim civic sight beyond corporeal objects to the nation's transcendental essence. This rhetoric is intimately connected to prevailing political anxieties and exigencies, especially the problem of…

Describes the employment of surrogate speakers and examines their role in the 1980 presidential contest. Considers the advantages and disadvantages of their use and concludes that surrogates served the important needs of three groups--the candidates for whom they spoke, the audiences they addressed, and the surrogates themselves. (PD)

The Diatribe includes obscenities, slang and advocacy of a counter-culture" to protest existing cultures. (Author/MF)

This paper explores the formation of a political order, a constituency, during the 1938-1940 senatorial campaign of the "Partido Popular Democratico" in Puerto Rico. In particular it examines the constitutive force of the "Catecismo del Pueblo," a small booklet in the form of questions and answers regarding the party's basic assumptions and…

The author suggests ways to overcome the conceptual and methodological limitations of studies involving campaign speaking and voting behavior. (Author/MF)

Studies the composition of Roosevelt's fourth inaugural address from its inception to its delivery on January 20, 1945. Clarifies the confusion about authorship and analyzes the speech drafts to determine which thoughts were FDR's and which were contributed by speech writers. Includes verbatim transcript of the address. (PD)

Analyzes the forensic and deliberative strategies employed by attorneys in the 1972 trial of Angela Davis. Integrates the findings with studies of legal rhetoric. (PD)

Suggests that the United States Constitution contains nearly universal concepts but also ambiguities which trigger conflicts. Describes the evolution of the document through its framing and through controversy surrounding the Alien and Sedition Acts, state nullification of federal action, and secession. Concludes that the Constitution provides a…

Discusses President Carter's televised address on the Panama Canal Treaties in terms of five "topoi" for a rhetoric of retreat: timeliness, urgency, value, advantage, and shrewdness. Compares his failure to employ the commonsense arguments that a policy of retreat requires in the televised speech with his more successful impromptu…