The UnTextbook of Rhetorical Theory is now an open educational resource with the University of Minnesota Libraries! Reading Rhetorical Theory: Speech, Representation, and Power is now available to read in a digital format or to download.
From the textbook page: This textbook offers a undergraduate-appropriate survey of rhetorical theory centered on techniques of speaking, cultural modes of representation, and entrenched hierarchies of power. It covers rhetoric’s problematic “origins” in ancient Greece, rhetoric as a feature of 20th-century sign- and symbol-systems, rhetoric’s role in crafting shared ideologies and belief systems, narrative-, argument-, and visual-based approaches to rhetoric, and a variety of different “situations” (rhetorical, settler colonial, secrecy/surveillance, and digital) where rhetoric continues to be found and felt in contemporary U.S. culture. This book also includes audio or video recordings for each chapter, recommended written assignments, and study guides for quizzes/exams. Developed in the wake of the 2020 global pandemic, this resource is designed for a range of modalities (online synchronous, online asynchronous, in-person, and hybrid). Additional materials (PowerPoint slides, quiz/exam questions) are also available to confirmed instructors upon request.
Atilla Hallsby 