Ableist Rhetoric. How We Know, Value, and See Disability

The RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric is published by the Pennsylvania State University Press in collaboration with The Rhetoric Society of America. Books published in this series consider rhetoric as both a practice and as a theoretical lens through which to engage other fields, and they investigate how rhetoric itself is complicated as a result of this transdisciplinary exchange.

About RSA Books

These books appeal, first, to scholars in communication studies and English or writing, and, second, to at least one other discipline or subject area.

These include, but are not limited to, the rhetoric of science; posthumanist rhetorics; animal studies; the relation of rhetoric and law; digital and visual rhetorics; the intersections of rhetoric and the medical sciences; the networks of rhetoric and economics. Books are well written and accessible to a broad range of students and scholars, as well as innovative and rigorously argued, combining theoretical sophistication with smart case analysis.

About RSA Books

Submissions should include a 3–5 page proposal outlining the intent of the project, its scope, its relation to other work on the topic, the anticipated audience, and what makes it transdisciplinary, including an explanation of what the project promises to contribute to another discipline (or disciplines) and how this transdisciplinary engagement will complicate rhetoric as a field of inquiry. Please also include 1–2 sample chapters (at least 1 body chapter) and a current C.V.

discount info

  • For orders within the US please use discount code: RHSA40
  • For orders from the UK / European distributor please use discount code: RHSAM

Rhetoric needs more audacious scholarship, and Every Living Thing is audacious yet rigorous. The inclusive nature of Johnson’s approach is exemplary. Scholars of rhetoric will be citing from all parts of this book for years to come

Debra Hawhee

author of Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation

Browse RSA Books

  • Ableist Rhetoric. How We Know, Value, and See Disability

    James L. Cherney

    James L. Cherney takes a rhetorical approach to the study of ableism to reveal how it has worked its way into our everyday understanding of disability.

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  • Rhetorical Style and Bourgeois Virtue. Capitalism and Civil Society in the British Enlightenment

    Mark Garrett Longaker

    During the British Enlightenment, the correlation between effective communication and moral excellence was undisputed—so much so that rhetoric was taught as a means of instilling desirable values in students. In Rhetorical Style and Bourgeois Virtue, Mark Garrett Longaker explores the connections between rhetoric and ethics in the context of the history of capitalism.

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  • Sign of Pathology. U.S. Medical Rhetoric on Abortion, 1800s–1960s

    Nathan Stormer

    Published in five editions between 1621 and 1651, The Anatomy of Melancholy marks a unique moment in the development of disciplines, when fields of knowledge were distinct but not yet restrictive. In Robert Burton’s Rhetoric, Susan Wells analyzes the Anatomy, demonstrating how its early modern practices of knowledge and persuasion can offer a model for transdisciplinary scholarship today.

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  • Museum Rhetoric. Building Civic Identity in National Spaces

    M. Elizabeth Weiser

    In today’s diverse societies, museums are the primary institutions within the public sphere in which individuals can both engage critical thought and celebrate community. This volume uses the lens of rhetoric to explore the role these societal repositories play in establishing and altering cultural heritage and national identity.

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  • From Hysteria to Hormones. A Rhetorical History

    Amy Koerber

    In From Hysteria to Hormones, Amy Koerber examines the rhetorical activity that preceded the early twentieth-century emergence of the word hormone and the impact of this word on expert understandings of women’s health.

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  • Kenneth Burke + The Posthuman

    Edited by Chris Mays, Nathaniel A. Rivers, and Kellie Sharp-Hoskins

    While rhetoric as a discipline is firmly planted in humanism and anthropology, posthumanism seeks to leave the human behind. This highly original examination of Kenneth Burke’s thought grapples with these ostensibly contradictory concepts as opportunities for invention, revision, and, importantly, transdisciplinary knowledge making.

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Joining RSA puts you into direct contact — via this website, RSA conferences and Institutes, and other RSA members-only resources — with a large and growing interdisciplinary group of scholars who share your interest in rhetoric. Members receive access to Rhetoric Society Quarterly, special rates on events, and are eligible to be nominated for RSA awards.