Modern Rhetorical Criticism

A comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the analysis of public rhetoric, Modern Rhetorical Criticism teaches readers how to examine and interpret rhetorical situations, ideas, arguments, structure, and style. The text covers a wide range of critical techniques, from cultural and dramatistic analysis to feminist and Marxist approaches. A wealth of original criticism demonstrates how to analyze such diverse forms as junk mail, campaign speeches, and popular entertainment, as well as literature. This long-awaited revision offers specific guidance on crafting analytic essays, and contains new coverage of legacy as well as new media, identity criticism, and post-colonial and decolonial criticism. The fourth edition also offers additional resources online for instructors and students.

Roderick P. Hart holds the Shivers Chair in Communication and is Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Former dean of the Moody College of Communication and founding director of the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, Hart is the author or editor of fifteen books, the most recent of which is Political Tone: What Leaders Say and Why (2013).

Suzanne Daughton has taught Rhetorical Criticism for nearly three decades at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. She has published in such places as the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Women’s Studies in Communication.

Rebecca LaVally is a professor of Rhetorical Criticism and Persuasion at California State University, Sacramento. She is a coauthor of Game Changers: Twelve Elections That Transformed California and winner of the 2014 California Historical Society Book Award.