A time to remember: Rhetorical pedagogy, commemoration, and activism
Abstract
Rhetorical scholar Barry Brummett asserts that rhetorical critics often see their work as “heuristic and moral”. In other words, it involves a spiritual sense of self-reflection acting through rhetoric, awareness, and the questioning of beliefs. The process of testing living claims and experiences-not just textual or verbal ones-moves the student from rhetorically aware, to rhetorically doing; the place of activism. In a very real sense, two exigencies emerged within the political climate. The moment indicated a need to facilitate how students could define their own beliefs regarding the issue. Self-reflection and identification are ways of experiencing the rhetorical situation. An understanding of and relationship with the moment makes the need for response important. Participatory critical rhetoric as pedagogy is an intersection of text, critique, and act. The act of teaching and learning, the act of remembering and commemorating and the act of creating critique.
Publication Title
Activism and Rhetoric: Theories and Contexts for Political Engagement
Recommended Citation
Moss, C. (2019). A time to remember: Rhetorical pedagogy, commemoration, and activism. Activism and Rhetoric: Theories and Contexts for Political Engagement, 49-61. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315144535-7
