Writing histories of rhetoric / edited by Victor J. Vitanza.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-285) and index.

This collection of twelve original essays, edited by Victor J. Vitanza, is a historiography of rhetoric, summarizing what has recently been accomplished in the revision of traditional histories of rhetoric and discussing what might be accomplished in the future. Featuring a variety of approaches - classical, revisionary, and avant-garde - it includes articles by Sharon Crowley, Hans Kellner, Kathleen Ethel Welch, William A. Covino, James A. Berlin, and John Schilb. In the first essay, Sharon Crowley identifies the major players and primary issues in a chronological narrative of the debate about the writing of the history of rhetoric that has arisen between traditionalists/essentialists and revisionists/constructionists. In recent years, traditionalists have demanded a more complete and accurate history, while revisionists have sought a critical understanding of the various epistemological-ideological grounds upon which a history of rhetoric had been and could be constructed. Revisionists, in their search for multiple, contestatory histories, have begun to critique one another, breaking into two general groups: one favoring a political-social program, the other resisting and disrupting such an approach.

Vitanza echoes Crowley's review of this ongoing debate by asking a crucial question: What exactly does it mean to be a revisionist historian? By combining the disintegration of various revisionist and subversive positions into a communal "we," he asks an additional question: Who is the "we" writing histories of rhetoric? The essays that follow give a rich answer to Vitanza's questions. They bring the writing of histories of rhetoric into the larger area of postmodern theory, raising neglected issues of race, gender, and class. Written with a variety of intentions, some of the essays are expository and highly argumentative while others are manifestos, innovative and far-reaching in tone. Still others are summaries and background studies, providing useful information to both the novice student and the experienced scholar.

Let me get this straight / Sharon Crowley -- After the fall : reflections on histories of rhetoric / Hans Kellner -- Interpreting the silent "Aryan model" of histories of classical rhetoric : Martin Bernal, Terry Eagleton, and the politics of rhetoric and composition studies / Kathleen Ethel Welch -- Alchemizing the history of rhetoric : introductions, incantations, spells / William A. Covino -- Human agency in the history of rhetoric : Gorgias's Encomium of Helen / Takis Poulakos -- Nietzsche and histories of rhetoric / John Poulakos -- Contigencies of historical representation / Janet M. Atwill -- Revisionary histories of rhetoric : politics, power, and plurality / James A. Berlin -- Future historiographies of rhetoric and the present age of anxiety / John Schilb -- Eating history, purging memory, killing rhetoric / Lynn Worsham -- Structuring the narrative for the canon of rhetoric : the principles of traditional historiography (an essay) with the Dead's Differend (a collage) / Jane Sutton -- Taking a-count of a (future-anterior) history of rhetoric as "libidinalized Marxism" (a PM pastiche) / Victor J. Vitanza -- An after/word : preparing to meet the faces that "we" will have met / Victor J. Vitanza.

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