Chicago:
University
of Chicago Press, 1958.
The Public Work of Rhetoric_nodrm
These we can establish for the second sophistic, and they are, in many cases, powerfully oriented toward a vision of the polis as a sustaining form of human organization: the Greek concept and practice taken up--and blown up--by the Romans.
Whether or not Trajan was influenced by Dio or by Pliny, a Roman of the same era who composed an extensive panegyric to the em- peror, at points arguing for the exercise of good government, the emperor could not have imagined or enacted his benevolent policies in the absence of a discourse outlining and supporting such actions.
This idea could also be understood in terms of legitimation.
The Greek rhetors played a role, literally, in keeping alive the imagination and value of democratic rule, on the one hand, and the condemnation of tyrannical imperial behavior, on the other.
What Peter W.
Rose identifies as the ideological work of Cicero's oratorical arguments is perhaps even more true of the epideictic discourses of the Greek
290 Susan C. Jarratt
rhetors: "An oration does more than propose a specific course of action: its persuasive function is aimed at constructing a vision of the real. . . . This vision of the real is the oration's enabling fiction. "28
Figured Discourse
It is difficult to show figured discourse at work because the hidden message is embedded in culture and allusion--a matter of historically informed specula- tion at such a distance. 29 What is communicated through figured discourse is, most often, a stance, attitude, or posture, rather than a full-fledged argument (although there are examples of these from the imperial period). In the cere- monial contexts where Greek rhetors made their appearances, figured discourse runs against the grain of smooth, showy oratorical performance: it is the grain of sand in the oyster, the residue left echoing in the minds of the auditors-- Roman, Greek, and all the others listening at such events--the uncomfort- able or enlivening, depending on one's position, sense that all is not well in the political order.
The most characteristic examples are drawn from references to classical Greek mythology and literature. The prick comes when the educated listener, who brings a deep familiarity with conventional impressions of characters and stories from Homer, the tragedians, and Greek mythology more gener- ally, hears a reference that subtly recasts the valences of the paideia. Consider the city encomium of Libanius (314-93), one of the imperial period's most prolific Greek rhetors: a native of Antioch, trained in Athens, called to serve in Constantinople by imperial command, and eventually allowed to return to his beloved city on the Orontes River as the official Sophist of the city. 30 The history of Libanius's relationship with imperial power is too complex to relate in detail here, but a few touch points will sketch a sense of the perilous balance between violence and coercion, on the one hand, and beneficence, on the other, within which Greek rhetors were held. When he was born in 314, Libanius's family was recovering from a disastrous punishment inflicted upon it a decade earlier "by the intemperate wrath" of the emperor Dioclet- ian. When he returned to Antioch in 354, the entire city council, including Libanius's uncle, had been arrested by the Roman prefect whose policies had provoked riots. This excessive prefect was soon replaced by a friendly and effec- tive one, and at the time of the composition of the "Antiochikos," Libanius was safe, respected, and soon to enjoy a brief period of stimulating exchange with the emperor Julian. 31 From these few details in a long and eventful life, the extreme vicissitudes of fortune, along with the actual impact, for good or ill, of public rhetoric at this time will become clearer.
What did empire mean to the Greek Sophists? Protection, employment, awe, threat, and the way things were. What was it possible for a Greek to say in the face of Roman imperial power? Libanius delivered this speech in 356 on the occasion of an Olympic games in the middle of a long career and at a
The Prospects for the Public Work of Rhetoric 291
hopeful moment in the course of his relations with emperors--on the eve of the accession of Julian to the highest office. Two-thirds of the way through a richly detailed description of the history and physical beauties of this thriv- ing metropolis, Libanius mentions the existence of Rome almost as an aside. When the "will of heaven" decreed that post-Alexandrian rulers of Antioch were to be replaced and the world was "girt with the golden chain of Rome" (? 129), the transfer of power occurred with no violence or rancor, Libanius claims, and Romans simply added their customs to existing ones. 32 To a con- temporary reader, Libanius sounds happily reconciled to the conditions of empire. If there are some constraints implied by the figure of a chain, mate- rial compensations, beauty, and technical artistry weigh against them, espe- cially coming from a Greek intellectual who appeared to be faring reasonably well under imperial rule. 33 But educated listeners would hear more. The Greek expression "chain of gold" from the Homeric dialect is rare, used by Zeus in Iliad, Book 8, in a violent threat to the other Olympian gods. Any who vio- lated Zeus's order would be snatched up, dangled by this golden cable, and then hurled "down to the murk of Tartarus" (l. 15). Zeus makes the threat to show "how far I tower over the gods, I tower over men" (ll. 20-31). 34 If the citizens of the lovely and prosperous Antioch were lulled through the first hun- dred paragraphs of Libanius's oration to feel that Rome was far away, they are wrenched back through this reference to a vision of a violent power struggle-- one that only the princeps, the first among them, will win. With the ferocious power of the empire, he can drag even its most privileged members, "and the earth . . . and sea, all together," up with a golden cable and leave them dan- gling in midair.
Romans had a stake in appearing and acting in moderate ways. The ideol- ogy of benevolence at the center of Pax Romana cannot be sustained in com- plete contradiction, as the recent removal of the violent prefect demonstrated. The city Sophist's role required simultaneously speaking to his fellow Anti- ochenes and keeping the content of this ideology present to the mind and vision of the Roman rulers, both in its negative and positive aspects. Elsewhere in the speech, Libanius directly and eloquently defends practices of civic rhet- orical deliberation (? 139-49), and thus we see the oscillation between parrhe^sia and figured discourse. The council, Libanius asserts, has the wisdom and ora- torical ability of a group of Sophists in their prime, and "this ability compels the governors to live up to their name, but not to go beyond it, and play the tyrant" (? 140). The mastery of deliberative oratory guarantees the independ- ence of the council, providing it with a "magic" even greater than the gover- nors' (? 141). Libanius gives precise instructions to the Roman governor about how to conciliate the local population and succeed: "any governor who wins a fair reputation thinks that he gained the crown of virtue, not because he has overcome insubordination, but because he has gained his praises among free and intelligent men" (? 143). Finally, the rhetor names the art of unconcealment
292 Susan C. Jarratt
specifically: "It is not a case that some may speak and others may not; there is a freedom of speech in which all share" (? 145). 35 And here we rotate back into the realm of the wished-for or projected state of affairs.
Codes
How might this very brief glimpse at postclassical Greek rhetoric give aid or inspiration to twenty-first-century public rhetors? In what ways would it pre- figure their efforts, suggesting points of emphasis for future practice? First, the situation of the Greek rhetors might suggest the importance of spending more time and attention on ways of addressing those in power and mixed publics in mutually recognizable terms. As academics, many of us are more comfortable as polemicists or critics, or in many public settings, as enablers of the underdeveloped rhetorics of the disenfranchised. Perhaps it is time to cultivate the rhetorical arts of the polis-diplomate of the twenty-first century, seeking out the codes that travel across power and class differentials within whatever geographies are available.
Second, we find in the conjunction of postclassical and postmodern rhet- orics a confirmation of "free speech" as a stance or posture rather than a reve- lation of the truth itself. Sophistic tactics combine parrhe^sia with the arts of irony, allusion, and generic experimentation, tactics at present more at home in electronic media than print or face-to-face contexts both in and out of school. 36 Rhetoric and writing in twentieth-century U. S. schools have most commonly occupied the domains of the pragmatic and instrumental, the earnest and straightforward, the clear and self-present. We specialize in the arts of free speech: of rational argument, logic, clear thinking. No doubt these arts, in all their complexity and power, should remain a strong emphasis for rhetoric studies. Perhaps the twist in the postmodern paideia has to do with how we represent their status and effects, their place within the poikilos nature--the pied, multicolored, mottled, intricate, changeful, unstable, wily ways--of twenty-first-century communications. Reimagining pedagogical mixes of instrumental and literary is clearly not a call to set the aside logos, nor would it entail the wholesale adoption of an ancient curriculum. 37 In the work of public rhetoric of this volume, the logos is often embedded within other genres: the academic conference (Condit), the meeting (Grabill), and the online exchange (Cushman). As pedagogues, public works rhetors, like their predecessors, construct practice sessions: mock scenarios in which students with disabilities can invent terminologies for their conditions and experi- ment with and restructure their emotional stances (Flower). Coogan's literacy group works in expressive modes--producing stories in recognizably literary forms--to which publics responded powerfully.
The 2008 presidential campaign gives us a striking example of how far we have to go--we academics and we citizens--in mastering the codes of free speech and figured discourse. Barack Obama's success as a memoirist prior to
The Prospects for the Public Work of Rhetoric 293
his candidacy for the highest office made front-page news in an article titled "The Story of Obama, Written by Obama. " Obama's self-presentation in Dreams from my Father, writes Janny Scott, "leaves an impression of candidness and authenticity that gives it much of its power. " The article goes on to quote Stanford English professor Arnold Rampersad, author of a biography of Ralph Ellison: "The book is so literary. . . . It is so full of clever tricks--inventions for literary effect--that I was taken aback, even astonished. But make no mistake, these are simply the tricks that art trades in, and out of these tricks is sup- posed to come our realization of truth. "38 The journalist gets what the English professor finds "astonishing": that truth is realized though persuasive discourse.
Of the many truths realized by the public rhetors in this volume, I close by nominating as the most vividly hopeful the Richmond teens' "sanctuary" mural (see this book's dust jacket). A powerful fusion of word and image that becomes a public argument, this act of fabrication reminded me, in all of its colorful, courageous improbability, of the evocations of peace and harmony echoing through Greek rhetoric under empire. 39 Publics have always been constructed in the absence of and hope for an ideal. With their act of fabri- cation, the teens create a public space of appearance, asserting their "reality" in Arendt's sense, and their hope: "Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal. "40
Notes
1. Arendt, Human Condition, 198.
2. See Royster, "Disciplinary Landscape," on traditions.
3. Ignatieff, "Burden," 22.
4. Foster, "Rediscovery," 2-3.
5. Kagan, Schmitt, and Donnelly, "Rebuilding," 1, iv. See also Hartnett and Stengrim,
Globalization, 1-39.
6. Mendelsohn, "Theatres," 79-84.
7. Such a direction could also be understood as the historical equivalent of anthro-
pology's turn toward "studying up. " See Nader, "Up the Anthropologist," 284-311.
8. Hartnett and Stengrim, Globalization, 267-92.
9. San Francisco Chronicle, February 19, 2003. Bush made these informal remarks in
reference to worldwide protests the day before in conversation with reporters after an unrelated event at the White House. Numerous national and international newspapers quoted the remarks on February 19, 2003.
10. Haussamen, "Editorial. " For a longer history, see Wines, "Ethics Violations. "
11. Smith and Low, Introduction, 1-16. See also Hauser, Vernacular Voices, 1-30.
12. See recent studies by Goldhill, Erotic Edge, 1-28; Pernot, Rhetoric, 128-201; and
Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 1-38, for general discussions of this group, including the problematic nature of the "Second Sophistic" label, and for an extensive bibliography. All subsequent dates will be in the Common Era unless specified.
13. Carolyn Miller's chapter in this volume provides an illuminating and carefully documented discussion of "concealment" as a transhistorical feature of rhetorical practice. The question here concerns the choice of tactics under specific historical and material circumstances.
294 Susan C. Jarratt
14. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 51-52. 15. Konstan, Emotions, 31.
16. Foucault, Fearless Speech, 12.
17. Connolly, "Virile Tongues," 86.
18. Ahl, "Art of Safe Criticism," 184, 203. 19. Foucault, Fearless Speech, 22.
20. See, for example, Jarratt, "George W. Bush. " 21. Philostratus, Lives, 21.
22. For accounts of the reigns of the two emperors who became the epitomes of vio- lent misrule, see Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 213-46, 299-314.
23. Dio Chrysostom, "Kingship Discourses. "
24. On the literal level, the comment may be taken to refer to language differences, although translator Wilmer Cave Wright comments "that Trajan understood Greek is probable. " Philostratus, Lives, 20-21 n. 5. The best education was in Attic Greek, but Roman public life and legal actions were conducted in Latin, which not all of the Greek intelligentsia deigned to learn. It is assumed that were many vernacular languages spo- ken in the empire, although very few written records remain. Among them would have been demotic Greek, Celtic, Coptic, Punic, Aramaic, Syriac, and numerous others. On this topic, see Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes, 277-80, for an overview and bibliography.
25. See Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 181-246.
26. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes, 268.
27. See Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 207, 246. Whitemarsh argues the unlikelihood
that any of these orations were presented to Trajan. Within Whitmarsh's theoretical paradigm, searching for extratextual contexts and effects dooms the historian/critic to an "expressive-realist" methodology (see 20-38). His emphasis on the textuality of sec- ond sophistic rhetoric is accompanied by a severely diminished recognition of material circumstances. In my view, exile is more than a trope.
28. Rose, "Cicero," 367. See also Poulakos, Speaking, 4, on the political orientation of Isocrates' rhetoric in the classical era.
29. For a reading of figured discourse in Anna Comnena's Byzantine era history, Alex- iad, see Quandahl and Jarratt, "'To Recall Him,'" 301-35.
30. Too late to fall under Philostratus's designation "Second Sophist," Libanius none- theless belongs with them, as he carries on the rhetorical practices of the Greek revival in the Roman East. For background on Libanius, see Libanius, Autobiography; Norman, General Introduction, xi-xviii; Cribiore, School of Libanius, 13-41.
31. Norman, General Introduction, xi-xiii.
32. Libanius, "Oration 11," 31.
33. For Libanius's financial circumstances, see his own extensive Autobiography and
Norman, General Introduction. On Libanius's school, see Cribiore, School of Libanius, 111-73.
34. Homer, Iliad, "Book 8," 231-50. (Fagles translates the key term as "cable. ")
35. Libanius, "Oration 11," 34-36.
36. See Fishman et al. , "Performing Writing," 224-52, on student performance within
the academic sphere.
37. See Brady, "Review," 70-81, for a review of new books on composition and literature. 38. Scott, "Story of Obama," 22 (emphasis added).
39. See, for example, Aristides' encomium of Rome. Oliver, "Ruling Power," 901-3. See
George, "From Analysis to Design," 11-39, on visual design as argument. 40. Arendt, Human Condition, 199-200.
The Prospects for the Public Work of Rhetoric 295
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Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. Brady, Laura. "Review: Retelling the Composition-Literature Story. " College English 71
(2008): 70-81.
Brown, Peter. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Toward a Christian Empire. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
Brunt, P. A. Roman Imperial Themes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Connolly, Jill. "Virile Tongues: Rhetoric and Masculinity. " In A Companion to Roman
Rhetoric, edited by William Dominik and Jon Hall, 83-97. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. Cribiore, Raffaella. The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton, N. J. : Prince-
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Dio Chrysostom. Vol. 1. Translated by J. W. Cohoon. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1949.
Fishman, Jenn, et al. "Performing Writing, Performing Literacy. " College Composition and
Communication 52 (2005): 224-52.
Foster, John Bellamy. "The Rediscovery of Imperialism. " Monthly Review 54, no. 6 (2002):
1-16.
Foucault, Michel. Fearless Speech. Edited by Joseph Pearson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e),
2001.
George, Diana. "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of
Writing. " College Composition and Communication 54 (2002): 11-39.
Goldhill, Simon. "The Erotic Eye: Visual Stimulation and Cultural Conflict. " In Being
Greek under Rome, 154-94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Gusterson, Hugh. "Up Revisited. " Political and Legal Anthropology Review 20 (1997):
114-19.
Hartnett, Stephen, and Laura Ann Stengrim. Globalization and Empire: The U. S. Invasion
of Iraq, Free Markets, and the Twilight of Democracy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press, 2006.
Hauser, Gerard A. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 1999.
Haussmen, Heath. "Editorial: Ethics Violations Need Real Investigations. " Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. http://www. crewsmostcorrupt. org/node/413
(accessed September 12, 2008).
Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Viking, 1990.
Ignatieff, Michael. "The Burden. " New York Times Magazine, January 5, 2003, 22-27, 50,
53-54.
Jarratt, Susan C. "George W. Bush, 'Graduation Speech at West Point. '" Voices of Democ-
racy Project. http://www. voicesofdemocracy. com/ (accessed June 1, 2002).
Kagan, Donald, Gary Schmitt, and Thomas Donnelly. "Rebuilding America's Defenses. Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. " Report of the Project for the New American Century, 2000. http://www. newamericancentury. org/RebuildingAmericas
Defenses. pdf (accessed July 3, 2009).
Konstan, David. The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Lit-
erature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
Libanius. Autobiography (Oration 1) the Greek Text. Translated by A. F. Norman. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1965.
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------. "Oration 11: The Antiochikos: In Praise of Antioch. " Translated by A. F. Norman. In Antioch as a Centre of Hellenic Culture as Observed by Libanius, 3-65. Liverpool: Liv- erpool University Press, 2000.
Mendelsohn, Daniel. "Theatres of War. " New Yorker, January 12, 2004, 79-84.
Nader, Laura. "Up the Anthropologist--Perspectives Gained from Studying Up. " In Reinventing Anthropology, edited by Dell H. Hymes, 284-311. New York: Pantheon
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Norman, A. F. General Introduction. In Antioch as a Centre of Hellenic Culture as Observed
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Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Three
Rivers Press, 2004.
Oliver, James H. , trans. "The Ruling Power. A Study of the Roman Empire in the Second
Century after Christ through the Roman Oration of Aelius Aristides. " Transactions of
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Pernot, Laurent. Rhetoric in Antiquity. Translated by W. E. Higgins. Washington, D. C. :
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Philostratus. Lives of the Sophists. In Philostratus and Eunapius, 2-315. Translated by
Wilmer Cave Wright. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1921.
Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1941.
Poulakos, Takis. Speaking for the Polis: Isocrates' Rhetorical Education. Columbia: Univer-
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History of Rhetoric. " Philosophy and Rhetoric 2 (2003): 148-67.
Scott, Janny. "The Story of Obama, Written by Obama. " New York Times, May 18, 2008. Smith, Neil, and Setha Low. "Introduction: The Imperative of Public Space. " In The Poli-
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1997.
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College Composition and Communication 47 (1996): 325-41.
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Contributors
John M. Ackerman is an associate professor of communication at the University of Colo- rado at Boulder. He directs the Program for Writing and Rhetoric and holds the Ineva Baldwin Chair of Arts and Sciences. He codirects the 2011 Rhetoric Society of America Institute in Boulder and has chaired the Doctoral Consortium of Rhetoric and Compo- sition. His research on disciplinarity, architecture, and everyday life has appeared in various journals and edited collections; an article with Louise Phelps on disciplinary visibility will appear in the sixty-year commemorative issue of College Composition and Communication.
M. Lane Bruner is currently professor of rhetoric and politics in the Department of Com- munication at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of Democ- racy's Debt (2009) and Strategies of Remembrance (2002), and he is a coeditor of Market Democracy in Post-Communist Russia (2005).
290 Susan C. Jarratt
rhetors: "An oration does more than propose a specific course of action: its persuasive function is aimed at constructing a vision of the real. . . . This vision of the real is the oration's enabling fiction. "28
Figured Discourse
It is difficult to show figured discourse at work because the hidden message is embedded in culture and allusion--a matter of historically informed specula- tion at such a distance. 29 What is communicated through figured discourse is, most often, a stance, attitude, or posture, rather than a full-fledged argument (although there are examples of these from the imperial period). In the cere- monial contexts where Greek rhetors made their appearances, figured discourse runs against the grain of smooth, showy oratorical performance: it is the grain of sand in the oyster, the residue left echoing in the minds of the auditors-- Roman, Greek, and all the others listening at such events--the uncomfort- able or enlivening, depending on one's position, sense that all is not well in the political order.
The most characteristic examples are drawn from references to classical Greek mythology and literature. The prick comes when the educated listener, who brings a deep familiarity with conventional impressions of characters and stories from Homer, the tragedians, and Greek mythology more gener- ally, hears a reference that subtly recasts the valences of the paideia. Consider the city encomium of Libanius (314-93), one of the imperial period's most prolific Greek rhetors: a native of Antioch, trained in Athens, called to serve in Constantinople by imperial command, and eventually allowed to return to his beloved city on the Orontes River as the official Sophist of the city. 30 The history of Libanius's relationship with imperial power is too complex to relate in detail here, but a few touch points will sketch a sense of the perilous balance between violence and coercion, on the one hand, and beneficence, on the other, within which Greek rhetors were held. When he was born in 314, Libanius's family was recovering from a disastrous punishment inflicted upon it a decade earlier "by the intemperate wrath" of the emperor Dioclet- ian. When he returned to Antioch in 354, the entire city council, including Libanius's uncle, had been arrested by the Roman prefect whose policies had provoked riots. This excessive prefect was soon replaced by a friendly and effec- tive one, and at the time of the composition of the "Antiochikos," Libanius was safe, respected, and soon to enjoy a brief period of stimulating exchange with the emperor Julian. 31 From these few details in a long and eventful life, the extreme vicissitudes of fortune, along with the actual impact, for good or ill, of public rhetoric at this time will become clearer.
What did empire mean to the Greek Sophists? Protection, employment, awe, threat, and the way things were. What was it possible for a Greek to say in the face of Roman imperial power? Libanius delivered this speech in 356 on the occasion of an Olympic games in the middle of a long career and at a
The Prospects for the Public Work of Rhetoric 291
hopeful moment in the course of his relations with emperors--on the eve of the accession of Julian to the highest office. Two-thirds of the way through a richly detailed description of the history and physical beauties of this thriv- ing metropolis, Libanius mentions the existence of Rome almost as an aside. When the "will of heaven" decreed that post-Alexandrian rulers of Antioch were to be replaced and the world was "girt with the golden chain of Rome" (? 129), the transfer of power occurred with no violence or rancor, Libanius claims, and Romans simply added their customs to existing ones. 32 To a con- temporary reader, Libanius sounds happily reconciled to the conditions of empire. If there are some constraints implied by the figure of a chain, mate- rial compensations, beauty, and technical artistry weigh against them, espe- cially coming from a Greek intellectual who appeared to be faring reasonably well under imperial rule. 33 But educated listeners would hear more. The Greek expression "chain of gold" from the Homeric dialect is rare, used by Zeus in Iliad, Book 8, in a violent threat to the other Olympian gods. Any who vio- lated Zeus's order would be snatched up, dangled by this golden cable, and then hurled "down to the murk of Tartarus" (l. 15). Zeus makes the threat to show "how far I tower over the gods, I tower over men" (ll. 20-31). 34 If the citizens of the lovely and prosperous Antioch were lulled through the first hun- dred paragraphs of Libanius's oration to feel that Rome was far away, they are wrenched back through this reference to a vision of a violent power struggle-- one that only the princeps, the first among them, will win. With the ferocious power of the empire, he can drag even its most privileged members, "and the earth . . . and sea, all together," up with a golden cable and leave them dan- gling in midair.
Romans had a stake in appearing and acting in moderate ways. The ideol- ogy of benevolence at the center of Pax Romana cannot be sustained in com- plete contradiction, as the recent removal of the violent prefect demonstrated. The city Sophist's role required simultaneously speaking to his fellow Anti- ochenes and keeping the content of this ideology present to the mind and vision of the Roman rulers, both in its negative and positive aspects. Elsewhere in the speech, Libanius directly and eloquently defends practices of civic rhet- orical deliberation (? 139-49), and thus we see the oscillation between parrhe^sia and figured discourse. The council, Libanius asserts, has the wisdom and ora- torical ability of a group of Sophists in their prime, and "this ability compels the governors to live up to their name, but not to go beyond it, and play the tyrant" (? 140). The mastery of deliberative oratory guarantees the independ- ence of the council, providing it with a "magic" even greater than the gover- nors' (? 141). Libanius gives precise instructions to the Roman governor about how to conciliate the local population and succeed: "any governor who wins a fair reputation thinks that he gained the crown of virtue, not because he has overcome insubordination, but because he has gained his praises among free and intelligent men" (? 143). Finally, the rhetor names the art of unconcealment
292 Susan C. Jarratt
specifically: "It is not a case that some may speak and others may not; there is a freedom of speech in which all share" (? 145). 35 And here we rotate back into the realm of the wished-for or projected state of affairs.
Codes
How might this very brief glimpse at postclassical Greek rhetoric give aid or inspiration to twenty-first-century public rhetors? In what ways would it pre- figure their efforts, suggesting points of emphasis for future practice? First, the situation of the Greek rhetors might suggest the importance of spending more time and attention on ways of addressing those in power and mixed publics in mutually recognizable terms. As academics, many of us are more comfortable as polemicists or critics, or in many public settings, as enablers of the underdeveloped rhetorics of the disenfranchised. Perhaps it is time to cultivate the rhetorical arts of the polis-diplomate of the twenty-first century, seeking out the codes that travel across power and class differentials within whatever geographies are available.
Second, we find in the conjunction of postclassical and postmodern rhet- orics a confirmation of "free speech" as a stance or posture rather than a reve- lation of the truth itself. Sophistic tactics combine parrhe^sia with the arts of irony, allusion, and generic experimentation, tactics at present more at home in electronic media than print or face-to-face contexts both in and out of school. 36 Rhetoric and writing in twentieth-century U. S. schools have most commonly occupied the domains of the pragmatic and instrumental, the earnest and straightforward, the clear and self-present. We specialize in the arts of free speech: of rational argument, logic, clear thinking. No doubt these arts, in all their complexity and power, should remain a strong emphasis for rhetoric studies. Perhaps the twist in the postmodern paideia has to do with how we represent their status and effects, their place within the poikilos nature--the pied, multicolored, mottled, intricate, changeful, unstable, wily ways--of twenty-first-century communications. Reimagining pedagogical mixes of instrumental and literary is clearly not a call to set the aside logos, nor would it entail the wholesale adoption of an ancient curriculum. 37 In the work of public rhetoric of this volume, the logos is often embedded within other genres: the academic conference (Condit), the meeting (Grabill), and the online exchange (Cushman). As pedagogues, public works rhetors, like their predecessors, construct practice sessions: mock scenarios in which students with disabilities can invent terminologies for their conditions and experi- ment with and restructure their emotional stances (Flower). Coogan's literacy group works in expressive modes--producing stories in recognizably literary forms--to which publics responded powerfully.
The 2008 presidential campaign gives us a striking example of how far we have to go--we academics and we citizens--in mastering the codes of free speech and figured discourse. Barack Obama's success as a memoirist prior to
The Prospects for the Public Work of Rhetoric 293
his candidacy for the highest office made front-page news in an article titled "The Story of Obama, Written by Obama. " Obama's self-presentation in Dreams from my Father, writes Janny Scott, "leaves an impression of candidness and authenticity that gives it much of its power. " The article goes on to quote Stanford English professor Arnold Rampersad, author of a biography of Ralph Ellison: "The book is so literary. . . . It is so full of clever tricks--inventions for literary effect--that I was taken aback, even astonished. But make no mistake, these are simply the tricks that art trades in, and out of these tricks is sup- posed to come our realization of truth. "38 The journalist gets what the English professor finds "astonishing": that truth is realized though persuasive discourse.
Of the many truths realized by the public rhetors in this volume, I close by nominating as the most vividly hopeful the Richmond teens' "sanctuary" mural (see this book's dust jacket). A powerful fusion of word and image that becomes a public argument, this act of fabrication reminded me, in all of its colorful, courageous improbability, of the evocations of peace and harmony echoing through Greek rhetoric under empire. 39 Publics have always been constructed in the absence of and hope for an ideal. With their act of fabri- cation, the teens create a public space of appearance, asserting their "reality" in Arendt's sense, and their hope: "Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal. "40
Notes
1. Arendt, Human Condition, 198.
2. See Royster, "Disciplinary Landscape," on traditions.
3. Ignatieff, "Burden," 22.
4. Foster, "Rediscovery," 2-3.
5. Kagan, Schmitt, and Donnelly, "Rebuilding," 1, iv. See also Hartnett and Stengrim,
Globalization, 1-39.
6. Mendelsohn, "Theatres," 79-84.
7. Such a direction could also be understood as the historical equivalent of anthro-
pology's turn toward "studying up. " See Nader, "Up the Anthropologist," 284-311.
8. Hartnett and Stengrim, Globalization, 267-92.
9. San Francisco Chronicle, February 19, 2003. Bush made these informal remarks in
reference to worldwide protests the day before in conversation with reporters after an unrelated event at the White House. Numerous national and international newspapers quoted the remarks on February 19, 2003.
10. Haussamen, "Editorial. " For a longer history, see Wines, "Ethics Violations. "
11. Smith and Low, Introduction, 1-16. See also Hauser, Vernacular Voices, 1-30.
12. See recent studies by Goldhill, Erotic Edge, 1-28; Pernot, Rhetoric, 128-201; and
Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 1-38, for general discussions of this group, including the problematic nature of the "Second Sophistic" label, and for an extensive bibliography. All subsequent dates will be in the Common Era unless specified.
13. Carolyn Miller's chapter in this volume provides an illuminating and carefully documented discussion of "concealment" as a transhistorical feature of rhetorical practice. The question here concerns the choice of tactics under specific historical and material circumstances.
294 Susan C. Jarratt
14. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 51-52. 15. Konstan, Emotions, 31.
16. Foucault, Fearless Speech, 12.
17. Connolly, "Virile Tongues," 86.
18. Ahl, "Art of Safe Criticism," 184, 203. 19. Foucault, Fearless Speech, 22.
20. See, for example, Jarratt, "George W. Bush. " 21. Philostratus, Lives, 21.
22. For accounts of the reigns of the two emperors who became the epitomes of vio- lent misrule, see Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 213-46, 299-314.
23. Dio Chrysostom, "Kingship Discourses. "
24. On the literal level, the comment may be taken to refer to language differences, although translator Wilmer Cave Wright comments "that Trajan understood Greek is probable. " Philostratus, Lives, 20-21 n. 5. The best education was in Attic Greek, but Roman public life and legal actions were conducted in Latin, which not all of the Greek intelligentsia deigned to learn. It is assumed that were many vernacular languages spo- ken in the empire, although very few written records remain. Among them would have been demotic Greek, Celtic, Coptic, Punic, Aramaic, Syriac, and numerous others. On this topic, see Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes, 277-80, for an overview and bibliography.
25. See Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 181-246.
26. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes, 268.
27. See Whitmarsh, Greek Literature, 207, 246. Whitemarsh argues the unlikelihood
that any of these orations were presented to Trajan. Within Whitmarsh's theoretical paradigm, searching for extratextual contexts and effects dooms the historian/critic to an "expressive-realist" methodology (see 20-38). His emphasis on the textuality of sec- ond sophistic rhetoric is accompanied by a severely diminished recognition of material circumstances. In my view, exile is more than a trope.
28. Rose, "Cicero," 367. See also Poulakos, Speaking, 4, on the political orientation of Isocrates' rhetoric in the classical era.
29. For a reading of figured discourse in Anna Comnena's Byzantine era history, Alex- iad, see Quandahl and Jarratt, "'To Recall Him,'" 301-35.
30. Too late to fall under Philostratus's designation "Second Sophist," Libanius none- theless belongs with them, as he carries on the rhetorical practices of the Greek revival in the Roman East. For background on Libanius, see Libanius, Autobiography; Norman, General Introduction, xi-xviii; Cribiore, School of Libanius, 13-41.
31. Norman, General Introduction, xi-xiii.
32. Libanius, "Oration 11," 31.
33. For Libanius's financial circumstances, see his own extensive Autobiography and
Norman, General Introduction. On Libanius's school, see Cribiore, School of Libanius, 111-73.
34. Homer, Iliad, "Book 8," 231-50. (Fagles translates the key term as "cable. ")
35. Libanius, "Oration 11," 34-36.
36. See Fishman et al. , "Performing Writing," 224-52, on student performance within
the academic sphere.
37. See Brady, "Review," 70-81, for a review of new books on composition and literature. 38. Scott, "Story of Obama," 22 (emphasis added).
39. See, for example, Aristides' encomium of Rome. Oliver, "Ruling Power," 901-3. See
George, "From Analysis to Design," 11-39, on visual design as argument. 40. Arendt, Human Condition, 199-200.
The Prospects for the Public Work of Rhetoric 295
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Contributors
John M. Ackerman is an associate professor of communication at the University of Colo- rado at Boulder. He directs the Program for Writing and Rhetoric and holds the Ineva Baldwin Chair of Arts and Sciences. He codirects the 2011 Rhetoric Society of America Institute in Boulder and has chaired the Doctoral Consortium of Rhetoric and Compo- sition. His research on disciplinarity, architecture, and everyday life has appeared in various journals and edited collections; an article with Louise Phelps on disciplinary visibility will appear in the sixty-year commemorative issue of College Composition and Communication.
M. Lane Bruner is currently professor of rhetoric and politics in the Department of Com- munication at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of Democ- racy's Debt (2009) and Strategies of Remembrance (2002), and he is a coeditor of Market Democracy in Post-Communist Russia (2005).
