Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics

Description

Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics contributes to the recovery and understanding of ancient rhetorics in non-Western cultures and other cultures that developed independently of classical Greco-Roman models. Contributors analyze facets of the rhetorics as embedded within the particular cultures of ancient China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the ancient Near East more generally, Israel, Japan, India, and ancient Ireland.

Informations

• Publié par: Parlor Press, LLC
• Date de parution: 03 avril 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781602356771
• Langue: English

Extrait

Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition
Series Editors: Catherine Hobbs, Patricia Sullivan, Thomas Rickert, and Jennifer Bay
The Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition honors the contributions Janice Lauer Hutton has made to the emergence of Rhetoric and Composition as a disciplinary study. It publishes scholarship that carries on Professor Lauer’s varied work in the history of written rhetoric, disciplinarity in composition studies, contemporary pedagogical theory, and written literacy theory and research.
Other Books in the Series
Transforming English Studies: New Voices in an Emerging Genre , edited by Lori Ostergaard, Jeff Ludwig, and Jim Nugent (2009)
Roman Rhetoric: Revolution and the Greek Influence, Revised and Expanded Edition, Richard Leo Enos (2008)
Stories of Mentoring, Theory and Praxis , edited by Michelle F. Eble and Lynée Lewis Gaillet
Writers Without Borders: Writing and Teaching Writing in Troubled Times , Lynn Z. Bloom (2008)
1977: A Cultural Moment in Composition , by Brent Henze, Jack Selzer, and Wendy Sharer (2008)
The Promise and Perils of Writing Program Administration, edited by Theresa Enos and Shane Borrowman (2008)
Untenured Faculty as Writing Program Administrators: Institutional Practices and Politics , edited by Debra Frank Dew and Alice Horning (2007)
Networked Process: Dissolving Boundaries of Process and Post-Process , by Helen Foster (2007)
Composing a Community: A History of Writing Across the Curriculum , edited by Susan H. McLeod and Margot Iris Soven (2006)
Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration: Individuals, Communities, and the Formation of a Discipline, edited by Barbara L’Eplattenier and Lisa Mastrangelo (2004). Winner of the WPA Best Book Award for 2004–2005.
Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures: Refiguring College English Studies (Expanded Edition) by James A. Berlin (2003)


Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics
Edited by
Carol S. Lipson
Roberta A. Binkley
Parlor Press
Anderson, South Carolina
www.parlorpress.com


Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
© 2009 by Parlor Press
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ancient non-Greek rhetorics / edited by Carol S. Lipson, Roberta A. Binkley.
p. cm. -- (Lauer series in rhetoric and composition)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60235-095-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-094-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-096-0 (adobe ebook)
1. Rhetoric, Ancient. 2. Rhetoric--History. I. Lipson, Carol. II. Binkley, Roberta A., 1941-
PN183.A53 2009
808.009--dc22
2009008640
Cover design by David Blakesley.
“Works of the Fields” in the Tomb of Paheri. Osiris.net. Used by permission.
Printed on acid-free paper.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper, cloth and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 8 1 6 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail [e-mail].


Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Carol S. Lipson
Religious Rhetoric of the Ancient Near East
2 Ritual Rhetoric in Ancient Near Eastern Texts
James W. Watts
3 The Gendering of Prophetic Discourse: Women and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East
Roberta Binkley
4 Rhetoric and Identity: A Study of Ancient Egyptian Non-Royal Tombs and Tomb Autobiographies
Carol S. Lipson
5 The Hebrew Bible as Another, Jewish Sophistic: A Genesis of Absence and Desire in Ancient Rhetoric
Steven B. Katz
Rhetorical Studies of the Ancient Far East
6 Reading the Heavenly Mandate: Dong Zhongshu’s Rhetoric of the Way ( Dao )
Yichun Liu and Xiaoye You
7 “Why Do the Rulers Listen to the Wild Theories of Speech-Makers?” 1 Or Wuwei, Shi, and Methods of Comparative Rhetoric
Arabella Lyon
8 The Right Use of True Words: Shinto and Shingon Buddhist Rhetoric in Ancient Japan
Kathy Wolfe
Rhetoric from Ancient India
9 Storytelling as Soul-Tuning: The Ancient Rhetoric of Valmiki’s Ramayana
Mari Lee Mifsud
10 Argument in Classical Indian Philosophy: The Case of Śankara’s Advaita Vedānta
Scott R. Stroud
An Ancient Western Non-Greek Rhetoric: Ancient Ireland
11 Orality, Magic, and Myth in Ancient Irish Rhetoric
Richard Johnson-Sheehan
Contributors
Index


Acknowledgments
The editors wish to acknowledge the support of the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University, which provided funding to help offset publication costs and also provided leave time, enabling efforts to bring this project to fruition. It has been a joy working with the talented contributors, as well as with dedicated staff members at Parlor Press; Tracy Clark and David Blakesley deserve special kudos.
We dedicate this book to Monica, Marissa, and Gretel, as well as to Edward, Michael, Daniel, Doree, and Benjamin.
—Carol Lipson and Roberta Binkley


1 Introduction
Carol S. Lipson
[T]he study of human rhetoric is not complete if it does not include the rhetorical traditions of non-Western cultures. . . .
(Xing Lu ,1998, Introduction, p. 1)
In recent years, rhetorical scholars have shown increasing interest in extending understanding of practices and theories to cultural territory beyond the boundaries of Western frameworks. Challenges to the parochial and situated nature of Western paradigms have arisen from various directions: due to recognition of the global nature of communication in contemporary society, and due as well to recognition of the heterogeneity of rhetorical frameworks within America itself and the Western world more generally. As Jackie Jones Royster queried in 2003, “What if we treated what we know about the history of Western rhetoric as it were merely what we know best rather than what is best?” (166). Such a shift is by no means a trivial or simple one, given the difficulty of putting aside both the theoretical lens and related values and apparatus through which Western scholars have come to view human communication.
Comparative Rhetoric, and Comparative Study in Related Fields
Much of the work involving rethinking of the field of rhetoric in relation to other cultures, particularly non-Western cultures, has taken place under the rubric of comparative rhetoric, a field which by definition compares principles and practices of one culture with those arising from classical Greece and Rome. Much of that work has examined the questions of appropriate methods and ethical practices. As LuMing Mao points out in “Reflective Encounters,” the study of non-Western rhetorics requires that a scholar begin with familiar concepts and terminology, but the scholar must attempt to move toward a more emic analysis, developing enough understanding of the culture and the historical context to view the phenomena as would a member of the society being studied. Bo Wang points to the increasing move in comparative scholarship to examine rhetorical practices within their particular historical contexts (171).
Our interest in this volume involves recovering and examining the ancient rhetorics in non-Western cultures and other cultures that developed independently of classical Greek models. Scholars trained in fields of rhetoric and composition face particularly high hurdles in attempting such work, for academic programs in rhetoric rarely offer specialization in the ancient languages and cultures of non-Western societies—whether China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Japan, India, or indeed Western rhetorics such as those in Mesoamerica and South America. Such problems face not only rhetoricians, but also philosophers who begin study of such ancient cultures. The late philosopher David Hall makes a limited case for the value of such participation despite a philosopher’s unfamiliarity with the ancient language. He writes that the main contribution of such a “comparativist is in the recovery of traditions ” (20). Hall has contributed to the understanding of similarities and differences between Chinese and Western thought. In an essay published posthumously, Hall defends the contributions of a scholar who is not a Sinologist, and who does not have the ability to read ancient Chinese. His particular argument takes the direction of advocating collaboration in composing translations and in conducting comparative work. In his case, since he is concerned with Chinese philosophy, he argues for the need for collaboration involving a specialist in philosophical traditions of the west and one familiar with the ancient Chinese language, with the goal of producing translations of ancient philosophical texts that could be meaningful to contemporary philosophers. Hall’s essay is a passionate defense of the value of collaborative participation, alongside a language expert, by a scholar who may be an amateur in the culture and language being examined, but is an expert in the subject being compared; his main concern was the translation of ancient Chinese philosophical texts.
In the case of rhetorical study, the examinations of ancient non-Western rhetorics are mainly conducted by scho