Shows how sophistic rhetoric can be, and has been, understood as a plausible result of relative and nihilistic attitudes toward the possibility of knowledge. Provides an overview of Sextus Empiricus' pyrrhonean or practical skepticism to show how it resembles sophism and rejects rhetoric. Suggests that the relative and negative epistemologies are…

Replies to an article in this issue that responds to an earlier article by these authors. Replies aesthetically in aphorisms, subsuming philosophical argument within a vortex of figuration and thus troping the knowledge drive while privileging "doxa" over "episteme." (SR)

Argues that oppositional thinking, if handled in the right way, will serve as a way to avoid the very problems that Jonathan Culler and Paul de Mann are troubled by: "purity, order, and hierarchy." Asserts that binary thinking can serve to encourage difference--indeed, encourage nondominance, nontranscendence, instability, and disorder.…

Reviews five major objections that have been lodged against the systems view. Pursues two further objections, which may be instrumental as reversal points for rehabilitating the systems approach. Argues for a radically revised view of systems that could have a significant impact on historical scholarship and pedagogy in rhetoric. (RS)

Uses G. Deleuze and F. Guattari's radical strategies of constantly decentering and recoding categorical terms to flee dialectics that organize bodies and sexualities to read across Monique Wittig's equally radical veerings into "thought-events." (RS)

Explores the methodology of rhetorical reasoning by looking to J. H. Newman's "Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent." Looks at how Newman prefigures S. Toulmin and C. Perelman, both of whom are interested in how rhetorical reasoning operates and why it is well suited to redress the limitations of formal logic. (TB)

This article outlines a theory for understanding the impact of a crisis on individuals and organizations. Crisis in context theory (CCT) is grounded in an ecological model and based on literature in the field of crisis intervention and on personal experiences of the authors. A graphic representation denotes key components and premises of CCT,…

This paper explores the similarities and differences between complexity science's and cultural-historical activity theory's understandings of human learning. Notable similarities include their emphasis on the importance of social systems or collectives in understanding human knowledge and practices, as well as their characterization of systems'…

This article traces a decline in CCCC sessions on language along with a shift toward more reductive definitions. It analyzes early CCCC treatment of language issues, the Students' Right document, changes in demographics and linguistics, and shifts within English departments that have left us overdue for professional reexamination of our role as…

The notion of links or connections among nodes or pieces of information sorted in a computer has changed throughout the brief history of hypertext. Originally, links were either thought to be semantic or functional in nature; that is, they were between meaningful information or they performed certain activities. Recently, links are beginning to be…

Robert L. Scott's article "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic" exemplifies agonistic-transcendent rhetoric in that it sought to revalue "rhetoric." However, as Scott has already noted, his project was ultimately compromised by his not revaluing "epistemic" in conjunction. Scott's article is criticized with respect to…

Examines the rhetorical function of the 1945 photograph of the flag raising at Iwo Jima as it is appropriated in a number of recent editorial cartoons. Builds upon rhetorical theory addressing repetitive form and visual metaphor to propose a concept of representative form. Argues that the parodied Iwo Jima image operates as an instance of…

Suggests that the reverberation of avant-garde's question (What is argument?) frees the movement of thought from existing boundaries and reveals that present practices and studies of argument are merely institutional or traditional channels for thought. Proposes that critics of avant-garde argument undermine prevailing academic commitment to see…

Discusses the need for student writers to find a voice that is uniquely theirs. Details the loss of authentic voice in composition teaching and the views of the social constructionists. Cites three nineteenth-century men of letters who never lost sight of the fundamental quality of good writing--the presence of the individual writer. (PRA)

Argues that textual criticism can offer a theoretically sound and practically useful base for the rhetorical reading of texts. Maintains that the study of controversy, approached through "representative anecdotes," offers an appropriate frame for expanding textual criticism into an intertextual arena. (SR)