Rhetorical Hermeneutics
and the Project of Globalization

Draft. Not for Publication.
Not for Quotation. All Rights Reserved.

Every once in a while a book comes along that shakes a field to its marrow. Rhetorical Hermeneutics purports to be that kind of book. Its editors, Alan Gross and William Keith, even claim that it will be intellectually coercive for that broader constituency of literary critics, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers who, like Stephen Shapin and Bruno Latour, "do rhetorical criticism in all but name." (1) Having read this volume, they may elect to continue in their usual way. But in the view of Gross and Keith, "they cannot." (2)

Rhetorical Hermeneutics would appear to be a field-transforming book. Its keynote essay, "The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science" (IRRS), is written by a colleague whom I greatly respect. Its style is characteristically urbane and sophisticated. Its readings of some of the case studies in the rhetoric of science literature are astute to the point of eliciting both initial shock and delayed appreciative recognition from their authors. (Says John Angus Campbell, "In many places he has understood me better than I understand myself." 113) Its look at the critical rhetorical scholarship by NCA-affiliated rhetoricians is fresh and appropriately disturbing. And Gaonkar's initial essay is followed by a dozen or so "dissensions" and "extensions" by other prominent rhetoricians.

IRRS first appeared in a special issue of Southern Communication Journal (58, 1993) along with responses from John Campbell, Steve Fuller, Alan Gross, Michael Leff, and Lawrence Prelli. To these august contributors, William Keith--now joined as co-editor by Alan Gross--solicited additional responses and invited the original group to revise and resubmit, possibly commenting on each other's initial essays and not just on the Gaonkar essay. All but Prelli took up the offer. Keith added an essay, as did James Jasinski, David Kaufer, Deirdre McCloskey, Carolyn Miller, and Charles Willard. Thomas Farrell contributed a meta-commentary wherein he pronounced everyone partly right. Finally, Gaonkar replied to his critics in an essay entitled "Close Readings of the Third Kind" (CRTK).

I intend this review as part of a continuing dialogue on future directions for rhetorical scholarship in our field. The Gaonkar essays raise fundamental questions about the adequacy of the classical rhetorical lexicon for purposes of critical (hermeneutic) scholarship, about the move toward globalization of rhetoric, about writings on the rhetoric of science, and, ultimately, about the traditions of training and scholarship we NCA types have established.

I believe there is much wrong with Gaonkar's first essay that has escaped the attention of his many distinguished respondents. Ironically, only McCloskey among the respondents seems to have realized just how damning IRRS is of rhetorical studies in our profession, but the style of McCloskey's critique is so shrill that it has gone largely unappreciated. (1) Compounding the irony, I share some of Gaonkar's skepticism about directions our field has taken; however, I don't believe he has made his case convincingly. At the conclusion of my essay, I will set forth recommendations as to where NCA-style rhetorical theory, criticism, and pedagogy should be heading.