Rhetorical Animals

Kristian Bjørkdahl is postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo.Alex C. Parrish is assistant professor of writing, rhetoric, and technical communication at James Madison University.

For this edited volume, the editors solicited chapters that investigate the place of nonhuman animals in the purview of rhetorical theory; what it would mean to communicate beyond the human community; how rhetoric reveals our "brute roots." In other words, this book investigates themes that enlighten us about likely or possible implications of the animal turn within rhetorical studies. The present book is unique in its focus on the call for nonanthropocentrism in rhetorical studies. Although there have been many hints in recent years that rhetoric is beginning to consider the implications of the animal turn, as yet no other anthology makes this its explicit starting point and sustained objective. Thus, the various contributions to this book promise to further the ongoing debate about what rhetoric might be after it sheds its long-standing humanistic bias.

Part I: Expanding Boundaries - InternallyChapter 1: Multiple Rhetorical Animals: Motivation and Fairness in a Paradigm of Rhetoric as Emotive ConsciousnessDavid GruberChapter 2: A Humanimal Rhetorics of Biological MaterialityHayley Zertuche Chapter 3: Let's Listen With Our Feet: Animals, Neurodivergence, Vulnerability, and Haptic RhetoricityKelin LoeChapter 4: Human Boundary Seepage and Bacterial RhetoricsJennifer Saltmarsh Part II: Expanding Boundaries - ExternallyChapter 5: The Biotic Turn in Rhetoric: Ethical Internatural Communication as Suasory PeacebuildingEllen Gorsevski Chapter 6: Towards an Ethological RhetoricDustin GreenwaltChapter 7: Beyond a Patriarchal Rhetorical Economy: Nonhuman Animals as Agents in Turkic Legends and Political CultureIklim GokselChapter 8: Human, Dolphins, and Other PeopleAlex Parrish Part III: Further Expansion: Cross-Species and Across CulturesChapter 9: Learning to Howl: An Exercise in Internatural AbductionEmily Plec and Susan HafenChapter 10: Touring the Sixth Persona: Dodos and the Rhetorical Effects of Missed CommunicationJake DionneChapter 11: How Dogs (and Other Nonhuman Animals) Become Interesting)Marilyn CooperChapter 12: How to Understand a Parrot's Words and What You Can Learn from Him: Early Indian Writers on Animal Speech Andrea GutierrezChapter 13: The Rhetoric of Nonanthropocentric RhetoricBjørkdahl, Kristian