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Ronald L. Jackson, II and Elaine B. Richardson (Eds.), UNDERSTANDING AFRICAN AMERICAN RHETORIC: CLASSICAL ORIGINS TO CONTEMPORARY INNOVATIONS. New York: Routledge, 2003; pp. 325, $85.00 hardcover, ISBN: 0415943868; $24.95 paper, ISBN: 0415943876.
The field of communication, despite being interdisciplinary, has yet to fully embrace the diversity of human experiences in relation to rhetoric. Rhetoric, derived from Greek philosophy, is traditionally conceptualized as a method of persuasion through logical/rational arguments. This Eurocentric perspective has privileged, at the expense of other traditions of orality and orature, a narrow understanding of the ways by which cultures communicate meaning and traditions through the spoken word. Understanding African American Rhetoric was written to empower the voices of scholars committed to interrogating "the flawed singularity of truth telling in rhetorical studies not only by exposing the limitations of the European-centered literature's hegemonic intent, but also by centralizing and celebrating the uniqueness of another rhetorical tradition, that of African Americans" (p. x).
Jackson and Richardson's volume is not based on a single theory of African American rhetoric, but rather extends and expands Africological theory...