Public Nudity and the Rhetoric of the Body
Public Nudity and the Rhetoric of the Body

Author: Brett Lunceford

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-12-14

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1498570704

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Although nudity is something that everyone has experience with, public nudity is still largely considered taboo. Public Nudity and the Rhetoric of the Body examines instances of public nudity where sexuality is at the forefront of public body display. It presents a range of case studies: the legal aspects of sexualized public nudity as it relates to communication theory and the First Amendment; the controversies surrounding the work of photographer Jock Sturges; the public performance art of Milo Moiré; the topless protests of FEMEN; the social media activism of Aliaa Magda Elmahdy; the ritualized flashing during Mardi Gras in New Orleans; and the sexual displays of Folsom Street Fair, the largest leather pride festival. Taken together, these cases teach much about identity, self-determination, and sexuality, and illustrate the complicated rhetorical nature of the human body in the public sphere.

Naked Politics
Naked Politics

Author: Brett Lunceford

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2012-06-14

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 0739177028

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Naked Politics: Nudity, Political Action, and the Rhetoric of the Body by Brett Lunceford, examines the rhetorical power of the unclothed body as it relates to protest and political action. This study explores what the disrobed body communicates, and how others are invited to make sense of this display. The actions examined range from grassroots protests to those of professionalized social movement organizations. Specifically, Lunceford examines PETA and the use of chained women and the Running of the Nudes; lactivists, or women engaging in public breastfeeding as protest action in both online and physical space; the World Naked Bike Ride’s worldwide protest against oil dependency and attempt to raise awareness of the vulnerability of cyclists; and a contest held on College Humor that invited women to write their preferred presidential candidate on their exposed breasts and send the picture to them to post on the site. Although these actions may seem to have little in common beyond their use of body exposure, they all share the notions that something can happen when you take your clothes off and that the act of disrobing can have social and political consequences. Moreover, these groups illustrate the often paradoxical views of the exposed body—by both the participants and the observers—and how such bodies operate in the public sphere. Even when the voice is silent, the body still speaks; Naked Politics considers what is being said.

Naked Politics
Naked Politics

Author: Brett Lunceford

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 073916709X

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Naked Politics: Nudity, Political Action, and the Rhetoric of the Body by Brett Lunceford, examines the rhetorical power of the unclothed body as it relates to protest and political action. This study explores what the disrobed body communicates, and how others are invited to make sense of this display. The actions examined range from grassroots protests to those of professionalized social movement organizations. Specifically, Lunceford examines PETA and the use of chained women and the Running of the Nudes; lactivists, or women engaging in public breastfeeding as protest action in both online and physical space; the World Naked Bike Ride's worldwide protest against oil dependency and attempt to raise awareness of the vulnerability of cyclists; and a contest held on College Humor that invited women to write their preferred presidential candidate on their exposed breasts and send the picture to them to post on the site. Although these actions may seem to have little in common beyond their use of body exposure, they all share the notions that something can happen when you take your clothes off and that the act of disrobing can have social and political consequences. Moreover, these groups illustrate the often paradoxical views of the exposed body--by both the participants and the observers--and how such bodies operate in the public sphere. Even when the voice is silent, the body still speaks; Naked Politics considers what is being said.

Critique of Pure Nature
Critique of Pure Nature

Author: Simona Stano

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-12-29

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 3031450752

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This book challenges the Western contemporary “praise for Nature”. From food to body practices, from ecological discourses to the Covid-19 pandemic, contemporary imaginaries abound with representations of an ideal “pure Nature”, essentially defined according to a logic of denial of any artificial, modified, manipulated — in short, cultural — aspect. How should we contextualise and understand such an opposition, especially in light of the rich semantic scope of the term “nature” and its variability over time? And how can we — if we actually can — envisage alternative models and approaches capable of better accounting for such richness and variability? The author addresses these fundamental issues, combining an initial theoretical problematisation of the concept of nature and its evolution — from classical philosophy to the crucial changes occurred through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Romanticism and the modern era, finally considering recent insights in philosophy, sociology, cultural anthropology and semiotics — with the analysis of its discursivisation — from the iconography of Mother Nature between the past and the present to the representation of catastrophic events in fictional and non-fictional texts, from clean eating and other popular food trends to the ambivalence of the naked body between its supposed natural ascription and its multiple cultural characterisations. Thus she introduces a critique of pure Nature, providing a systematic study of the way nature is attributed meaning and value in some of today’s most relevant discourses and practices, and finally tracing a possible path towards an “internatural turn”.

Participatory Critical Rhetoric
Participatory Critical Rhetoric

Author: Michael Middleton

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2015-12-16

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1498513816

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Increasingly, rhetorical scholars are using fieldwork and other ethnographic, performance, and qualitative methods to access, document, and analyze forms of everyday in situ rhetoric rather than using already documented texts. In this book, the authors argue that participatory critical rhetoric, as an approach to in situ rhetoric, is a theoretically, methodologically, and praxiologically robust approach to critical rhetorical studies. This book addresses how participatory critical rhetoric furthers understanding of the significant role that rhetoric plays in everyday life through expanding the archive of rhetorical practices and texts, emplacing rhetorical critics in direct conversation with rhetors and audiences at the moment of rhetorical invention, and highlighting marginalized voices that might otherwise go unnoticed. This book organizes the theoretical and methodological foundations of participatory critical rhetoric through four vectors that enhance conventional rhetorical approaches: 1) the political commitments of the critic; 2) rhetorical reflexivity and the role of the embodied critic; 3) emplaced rhetoric and the interplay between the field, text, and context; and 4) multiperspectival judgment that is informed by direct participation with rhetors and audiences. In addition to laying the groundwork and advocating for the approach, Participatory Critical Rhetoric also offers significant contributions to rhetorical theory and criticism more broadly by revisiting the field’s understanding of core topics such as role of the critic, text/context, audience, rhetorical effect, and the purpose of criticism. Further, it enhances theoretical conversations about material rhetoric, place/space, affect, intersectional rhetoric, embodiment, and rhetorical reflexivity.

Visual Rhetoric
Visual Rhetoric

Author: Lester C. Olson

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2008-03-20

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 141294919X

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Visual images, artifacts, and performances play a powerful part in shaping U.S. culture. To understand the dynamics of public persuasion, students must understand this "visual rhetoric." This rich anthology contains 20 exemplary studies of visual rhetoric, exploring an array of visual communication forms, from photographs, prints, television documentary, and film to stamps, advertisements, and tattoos. In material original to this volume, editors Lester C. Olson, Cara A. Finnegan, and Diane S. Hope present a critical perspective that links visuality and rhetoric, locates the study of visual rhetoric within the disciplinary framework of communication, and explores the role of the visual in the cultural space of the United States. Enhanced with these critical editorial perspectives, Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture provides a conceptual framework for students to understand and reflect on the role of visual communication in the cultural and public sphere of the United States. Key Features and Benefits Five broad pairs of rhetorical action—performing and seeing; remembering and memorializing; confronting and resisting; commodifying and consuming; governing and authorizing—introduce students to the ways visual images and artifacts become powerful tools of persuasion Each section opens with substantive editorial commentary to provide readers with a clear conceptual framework for understanding the rhetorical action in question, and closes with discussion questions to encourage reflection among the essays The collection includes a range of media, cultures, and time periods; covers a wide range of scholarly approaches and methods of handling primary materials; and attends to issues of gender, race, sexuality and class Contributors include: Thomas Benson; Barbara Biesecker; Carole Blair; Dan Brouwer; Dana Cloud; Kevin Michael DeLuca; Anne Teresa Demo; Janis L. Edwards; Keith V. Erickson; Cara A. Finnegan; Bruce Gronbeck; Robert Hariman; Christine Harold; Ekaterina Haskins; Diane S. Hope; Judith Lancioni; Margaret R. LaWare; John Louis Lucaites; Neil Michel; Charles E. Morris III; Lester C. Olson; Shawn J. Parry-Giles; Ronald Shields; John M. Sloop; Nathan Stormer; Reginald Twigg and Carol K. Winkler "This book significantly advances theory and method in the study of visual rhetoric through its comprehensive approach and wise separations of key conceptual components." —Julianne H. Newton, University of Oregon

Theorizing Digital Rhetoric
Theorizing Digital Rhetoric

Author: Aaron Hess

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-20

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1351788639

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Theorizing Digital Rhetoric takes up the intersection of rhetorical theory and digital technology to explore the ways in which rhetoric is challenged by new technologies and how rhetorical theory can illuminate discursive expression in digital contexts. The volume combines complex rhetorical theory with personal anecdotes about the use of technologies to create a larger philosophical and rhetorical account of how theorists approach the examinations of new and future digital technologies. This collection of essays emphasizes the ways that digital technology intrudes upon rhetorical theory and how readers can be everyday rhetorical critics within an era of ever-increasing use of digital technology. Each chapter effectively blends theorizing between rhetoric and digital technology, informing readers of the potentiality between the two ideas. The theoretical perspectives informed by digital media studies, rhetorical theory, and personal/professional use provide a robust accounting of digital rhetoric that is timely, personable, and useful.

The Rhetorical Power of Children's Literature
The Rhetorical Power of Children's Literature

Author: John H. Saunders

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2016-12-21

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1498543308

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The Rhetorical Power of Children's Literature is an edited volume with contributions from established and new scholars of rhetoric offering case studies that analyze a full array of genres in children’s literature from picture books to young adult novels. Collectively, this volume’s contributions interrogate how children’s literature is a powerful yet under examined space of rhetorical discourse that influences one of the most vulnerable segments of our population. This book is singularly unique given that it will be the first collection of essays on children’s literature from the distinct perspective of the field of Communication. Beyond topical novelty, the contributors utilize a range of scholarly methods to analyze instances of the rhetoric of children’s literature. Consequently, essays in this volume may be read for both their specific topical content and as exemplars for multiple methodological approaches to the study of the rhetoric of children’s literature. Collectively, the contributors set out to contribute to our knowledge of how instances of children’s literature operate as rhetorical discourses. The volume is organized by case studies approached through critical, rhetorical lenses that analyze specific instances of children’s literature from two distinct stages of children’s developmental reading experiences including pre/early literacy and fluent reading. Structurally, the book includes eight content chapters divided evenly with four chapters analyzing books for young children and four chapters analyzing books targeting audiences from late-childhood to adolescence. An overview of each content chapter accompanies this proposal. is an edited volume with contributions from established and new scholars of rhetoric offering case studies that analyze a full array of genres in children’s literature from picture books to young adult novels. Collectively, this volume’s contributions interrogate how children’s literature is a powerful yet under examined space of rhetorical discourse that influences one of the most vulnerable segments of our population. This book is singularly unique given that it will be the first collection of essays on children’s literature from the distinct perspective of the field of Communication. Beyond topical novelty, the contributors utilize a range of scholarly methods to analyze instances of the rhetoric of children’s literature. Consequently, essays in this volume may be read for both their specific topical content and as exemplars for multiple methodological approaches to the study of the rhetoric of children’s literature. Collectively, the contributors set out to contribute to our knowledge of how instances of children’s literature operate as rhetorical discourses. The volume is organized by case studies approached through critical, rhetorical lenses that analyze specific instances of children’s literature from two distinct stages of children’s developmental reading experiences including pre/early literacy and fluent reading. Structurally, the book includes eight content chapters divided evenly with four chapters analyzing books for young children and four chapters analyzing books targeting audiences from late-childhood to adolescence. An overview of each content chapter accompanies this proposal.

Silhouettes of the Soul
Silhouettes of the Soul

Author: Otto Von Busch

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-02-10

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1350179922

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What is the relationship between the soul, or inner life, and what we wear in the making of identity and belief? What bearing do religious and political belonging, respectability, and resistance have on the way in which we dress? Why have more traditional religious practices been so prescriptive about body adornment? Historically, fashionable dress and religion have been positioned as polar opposites. Silhouettes of the Soul brings them together, placing them in conversation with each other. By moving beyond traditional, social scientific, and historical analysis of religious attire and adornment the book presents a variety of disciplinary approaches from across regional, social, and religious locations. Contentious and challenging, as well as academically rigorous, the book's diverse range of contributors - from fashion and religious studies scholars, to designers, activists, monastics, and journalists - explore the relationship between religion and fashion, extending the meanings and possibilities of both dress and spirituality. Combining interviews and personal stories with more traditional theoretical analysis, Silhouettes of the Soul offers new ways of looking at the relationship between religion, personal convictions, and self-expression - our sense of self and our sense of fashion.

Clothing and Nudity in the Hebrew Bible
Clothing and Nudity in the Hebrew Bible

Author: Christoph Berner

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-06-27

Total Pages: 613

ISBN-13: 0567678482

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The volume discusses nudity and clothing in the Hebrew Bible, covering anthropological, theological, archaeology and religious-historical aspects. These aspects are addressed in three separate sections, enhanced by over a hundred pictures and illustrations. Part I places nudity and clothing in its ancient Israelite context, with discussions of methodology, the ancient Near Eastern evidence (including material culture and iconography), and an assessment of central aspects of the biblical material such as fabrication and uses of textiles, lexicography, theological and anthropological implications. Part II looks at key themes such as mourning, death, encounters with the divine and issues of power and status. Finally, Part III presents several close studies of key passages from narrative, prophetic and wisdom texts where clothing and nudity play an important role.