The Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation & Rhetoric along with the PhD in Argumentation Studies at the University of Windsor invite you to a talk by
Robert Danisch, Professor, Department of Communication Arts, University of Waterloo
Living Democracy: From Primal Rhetoric to Reflective Rhetoric
Abstract: Feelings seem decidedly unresponsive to facts in the current political moment. This is not good for democracy. As we witness the decline and fall of the American democratic experiment, we have a unique opportunity to chart and diagnose rhetoric’s role in arriving at such a moment and to offer suggestions for how rhetoric might be practiced to avoid America’s fate. Bringing facts into conversation with feelings seems like an urgent project if we are to have any hope for politics, and a responsibility for the practice of rhetoric in a functioning democracy. This paper revisits the enduring tension between rhetoric’s ability to guide decision-making through reason and argument, on the one hand, and rhetoric’s emotional, provocative, affective force, on the other hand. My aim is to sketch a theory of “primal rhetoric” that takes the emotional, affective force of language as a starting point. Many 20th century intellectuals emphasized the signifying operations of language in their work. Semiotics, deconstruction, post-structuralism are all committed to understanding language as a signifying system directed toward meaning. Rhetoric has always encouraged a different view of language. Beginning in ancient Athens, rhetorical theory asked questions about the force language has, how words impact actions, what people do in response to a message, not whether they understand the message. Signification is inclined toward issues of meaning, understanding, and indeterminacy; rhetoric is inclined toward a focus on forces, effects, and actual actions. If we understand, and work to normatively improve, the primal processes of rhetoric, then we have a better chance of constructive interaction between facts and feelings and a better chance of living democracy. Our age is marked by primal, emotional effects and responses to language; can we find a way back from the brink of fascism to democracy through such primal rhetorical forces?
September 12, 2025
3:00 p.m.
Chrysler Hall North, 1163
All Welcome
Reception to follow