The Future of Invention, livre ebook

Examines the concept of rhetorical invention from an affirmative, nondialectical perspective.

Examines the concept of rhetorical invention from an affirmative, nondialectical perspective.

The Future of Invention links classical rhetorical practices of invention with the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida and proposes that some of the most crucial implications of postmodern theory have gone largely unattended. Drawing on such classical rhetorical concepts as doxa, imitation, kairos, and topos, and engaging key works by Aristotle, Plato, the Sophists, and others, John Muckelbauer demonstrates how rhetorical invention can offer a nondialectical, "affirmative" sense of change that invites us to rethink the ways in which we read, write, and respond to others.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part I: Orientations

1. The Problem of Change

2. Why Rhetoric? Which Rhetoric?

The Scope of Rhetoric
Humanism, Postmodernism, Performative Ethics
Singular Rhythms

3. How to Extract Singular Rhythms: Affirmative Reading and Writing

Styles of Engagement
Arguments
Affirmative Strategies

Part II: Intensities

4. Imitation and Invention

Reproduction: Repetition of the Same
Variation: Repetition of Difference
Inspiration: Difference and Repetition
Refrain

5. Itineration: What Is a Sophist?

Sophistic Targets, Sophistic Topography
Resembling Thought
Seeing and Time
Returns

6. Situatedness and Singularity

Audience
Situations and Synthesis
Kairos
Situatedness as Singularity

7. Topoi: Replacing Aristotle

Aristotle’s Place
Rhetoric’s Place
Scholarly Style

8. The Future of Invention: Doxa and "the Common"

The Time of Invention
Doxa and the Common
The Time of Invention (echoes)

Notes
Works Cited
Index