Ancient Rhetorics and Digital Networks (Rhetoric, Culture, and Social Critique)

An examination of two seemingly incongruous areas of study: classical models of argumentation and modern modes of digital communication. What can ancient rhetorical theory possibly tell us about the role of new digital media technologies in contemporary public culture? Some central issues we currently deal with—making sense of information abundance, persuading others in our social network, navigating new media ecologies, and shaping broader cultural currents—also pressed upon the ancients. Ancient Rhetorics and Digital Networks makes this connection explicit, reexamining key figures, texts, concepts, and sensibilities from ancient rhetoric in light of the glow of digital networks, or, ordered conversely, surveying the angles and tangles of digital networks from viewpoints afforded by ancient rhetoric. By providing an orientation grounded in ancient rhetorics, this collection simultaneously historicizes contemporary developments and reenergizes ancient rhetorical vocabularies. Contributors engage with a variety of digital phenomena including remix, big data, identity and anonymity, memes and virals, visual images, decorum, and networking. Taken together, the essays in Ancient Rhetorics and Digital Networks help us to understand and navigate some of the fundamental communicative issues we deal with today. Contents......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 10 Preface: Finding Rhetorical Poroi in the Pontos of Internetworked Media......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 16 Introduction / Michele Kennerly and Damien Smith Pfister......Page 20 1. On Network / Mari Lee Mifsud......Page 47 2. Imagining Confucian Audiences: Tactical Media and the Umbrella Movement / Arabella Lyon......Page 67 3. Big Data and Global Knowledge: A Protagorean Analysis of the United Nations’ Global Pulse / E. Johanna Hartelius......Page 86 4. On Fear and Longing: Gorgias and the Phobos and Erōs of Visual Rhetoric / Nathan Crick......Page 107 5. Impure Imaginations: The Rhetorical Humors of Digital Virology / Christopher J. Gilbert......Page 126 6. Isocratean Tropos and Mediated Multiplicity / Rosa A. Eberly and Jeremy David Johnson......Page 151 7. Plato’s Phaedrus and the Ideology of Immersion / Ekaterina V. Haskins and Gaines S. Hubbell......Page 173 8. Genre in Ancient and Networked Media / Carolyn R. Miller......Page 195 9. Poiēsis, Genesis, Mimēsis: Toward a Less Selfish Genealogy of Memes / Michele Kennerly and Damien Smith Pfister......Page 224 10. Remix, Śūnyatā, and Prosōpopoeia: Projecting Voice in the Digital Age / Scott Haden Church......Page 248 11. The Jaina Rhetoric of Nonviolence and the Culture of Online Shaming / Scott R. Stroud......Page 271 Bibliography......Page 292 Contributors......Page 318 Index......Page 322