• Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    "[Genetically Modified Organisms: A Scientific-Political Dialogue on a Meaningless Meme is] presents the debate associated with introducing GMOs as a traditional debate between science and progress against dogma. After reading it, I hope that science will win for the sake of all of us."

    - Professor David Zilberman, University of California at Berkeley

Romanticism, Rhetoric and the Search for the Sublime, 2nd Edition: A Neo-Romantic Theory

Relying on the author’s established expertise in rhetoric and political communication, this book re-contextualizes Romantic rhetorical theory from the late 18th and early 19th centuries to provide a foundation for a Neo-Romantic rhetorical theory for our own time. In the process, it uses a unique methodology to correct misconceptions about the rhetorical theories of many writers. Using a dialectical approach, the early chapters trace Romanticism through its opposition to the industrial revolution and the Enlightenment, back through Humanism and its opposition to Scholasticism, to its roots in St. Augustine’s writing. These chapters include a revisionist analysis of the church’s treatment of Galileo in the course of showing how difficult it was for scientific study to be accepted in Scholastic circles. The study goes on to argue that Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, and Edmund Burke were bridge figures to the Romantic Era. This move throws new light on exemplary painters, composers, writers and orators of the Romantic Era, who are examined in chapters eight and nine. Chapter ten focuses on Percy Bysshe Shelley and his development of the rhetorical poem, and thereby provides a new genre in the Romantic catalogue. Chapter Eleven turns to the Romantic rhetorical theories of Hugh Blair and Thomas De Quincey to empower those seeking to save the environment. The concluding chapter then synthesizes their theories with relevant contemporary rhetorical theories thereby constructing a Neo-Romantic theory for our own time. In the process, the book links the Romantics’ love of nature to the current environmental crisis.


Dr Craig R. Smith has won the Ehninger Award for contributions to rhetorical theory and the Gronbeck Award for political communication, both from the National Communication Association, USA. He has won that organization’s Robert O’Neil Award three times for scholarly papers on freedom of expression. After completing a PhD at Pennsylvania State University, Dr Smith taught at San Diego State University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Alabama Birmingham, where he founded the Communication Studies Department. He also served as a full-time speechwriter for President Gerald Ford, as a consulting writer to George H. W. Bush, and as a consultant to CBS News for convention, election, and inaugural coverage. He served as founding President of the Freedom of Expression Foundation in Washington, DC from 1983 to 1988, before becoming a Full Professor at California State University, Long Beach, until he retired in 2015. He has published 23 books and over 65 scholarly articles.

There are currently no reviews for this title. Please do revisit this page again to see if some have been added.

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-5275-9291-X

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-9291-9

Release Date: 30th January 2023

Pages: 355

Price: £72.99

-
+

ISBN: 1-0364-0100-6

ISBN13: 978-1-0364-0100-9

Release Date: 20th February 2024

Pages: 355

Price: £36.99

-
+