Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation

We tend to think of rhetoric as a solely human art. After all, only humans can use language artfully to make a point, the very definition of rhetoric.

Yet when you look at ancient and early modern treatises on rhetoric, what you find is surprising: they're crawling with animals. With Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw, Debra Hawhee explores this unexpected aspect of early thinking about rhetoric, going on from there to examine the enduring presence of nonhuman animals in rhetorical theory and education. In doing so, she not only offers a counter-history of rhetoric but also brings rhetorical studies into dialogue with animal studies, one of the most vibrant areas of interest in humanities today. By removing humanity and human reason from the center of our study of argument, Hawhee frees up space to study and emphasize other crucial components of communication, like energy, bodies, and sensation.

Drawing on thinkers from Aristotle to Erasmus, Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw tells a new story of the discipline's history and development, one animated by the energy, force, liveliness, and diversity of our relationships with our "partners in feeling," other animals.

Author: Debra Hawhee
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 06/11/2020
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.86lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780226706771

About the Author
Debra Hawhee is McCourtney Professor of Civic Deliberation and professor of English and communication arts and sciences at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Moving Bodies: Kenneth Burke at the Edges of Language and Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece.