TY - JOUR
T1 - Rethinking Rhetorical Education in Times of Demagoguery
AU - Steudeman, Michael J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 The Rhetoric Society of America.
PY - 2019/5/27
Y1 - 2019/5/27
N2 - Historical efforts to thwart demagoguery through rhetorical pedagogy have inadvertently abetted further demagoguery. Highlighting three American episodes of pedagogic backfire, this essay interrogates how teachers of rhetoric have fueled resentments, upheld logics of exclusion, or presumed an exceptional immunity to demagogic cooptation. Theorizing demagoguery and democracy as reciprocal forces that operate through the same rhetorical and institutional structures, this essay advises an attitudinal reorientation toward teaching rhetoric that emphasizes spontaneity and vigilance in the face of demagoguery’s continual infiltration of discursive practices.
AB - Historical efforts to thwart demagoguery through rhetorical pedagogy have inadvertently abetted further demagoguery. Highlighting three American episodes of pedagogic backfire, this essay interrogates how teachers of rhetoric have fueled resentments, upheld logics of exclusion, or presumed an exceptional immunity to demagogic cooptation. Theorizing demagoguery and democracy as reciprocal forces that operate through the same rhetorical and institutional structures, this essay advises an attitudinal reorientation toward teaching rhetoric that emphasizes spontaneity and vigilance in the face of demagoguery’s continual infiltration of discursive practices.
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U2 - 10.1080/02773945.2019.1610642
DO - 10.1080/02773945.2019.1610642
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85067251982
SN - 0277-3945
VL - 49
SP - 297
EP - 314
JO - RSQ-Rhetoric Society Quarterly
JF - RSQ-Rhetoric Society Quarterly
IS - 3
ER -