The Rhetorical River

摘要

Publication of Malcom Sillars' “Persistent Problems in Rhetorical Criticism” in 1976 presented rhetorical critics with eight recalcitrant issues concerning the practice of rhetorical criticism. In revisiting this important essay, one finds missing from Sillars' observations one important consideration: the ideological turn in criticism. In the essay that follows, I carry-on in the tradition of Sillars and explore how the ideological turn that occurred after the publication of Sillars' essay has introduced new possibilities and problems for rhetorical criticism.