Rhetorical Animals: Boundaries of the Human in the Study of Persuasion (Ecocritical Theory and Practice)

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. Contents 6 Introduction 8 EXPANDING BOUNDARIES—INTERNALLY 26 Multiple Rhetorical Animals 28 A Humanimal Rhetorics of Biological Materiality 48 Let’s Listen with Our Feet 66 Human Boundary Seepage, Bacterial Rhetorics 86 EXPANDING BOUNDARIES—EXTERNALLY 106 The Biotic Turn in Rhetoric 108 Toward a Rhetorical Ethology 134 Beyond a Patriarchal Rhetorical Economy 154 Humans, Dolphins, and Other People 170 FURTHER EXPANSION: CROSS-SPECIES AND ACROSS CULTURES 194 Learning to Howl 196 Touring the Sixth Persona 222 How Dogs (and Other Nonhuman Animals) Become Interesting 244 How to Understand a Parrot’s Words and What You Can Learn from Him 262 The Rhetoric of Nonanthropocentric Rhetoric 282 Index 306 About the Contributors 316 Rhetorical Animals explores what the study of communication and persuasion would look like if it included the voices of all persuasive species, from the microscopic gut bacteria to the charismatic megafauna we know so well.