Search Results (82)

I argue that the universally accepted assumption that in realist fiction a character narrator’s narration contributes to their characterization needs to be complicated. Working with a conception of narrative as rhetoric that highlights readerly interest in the author’s handling of the mimetic, thematic, and synthetic components of narrative, I suggest that the question about narration as characterization is one about the relation between the mimetic (character as possible person) and synthetic (character as invented construct) components. In addition, understanding the mimetic-synthetic relation requires attention to issues at the macro and micro levels of such narratives. At the macro level, I note the importance of (1) the tacit knowledge, shared by both authors and audiences, of the fictionality of character narration, which means authors write and readers read with an interest in its payoffs; and of (2) the recognition that character narration functions simultaneously along two tracks of communication: that between the character narrator and their narratee, and that between the author and their audience. These macro level matters then provide a frame within which authors and readers understand what happens at the micro level. At that level, I identify seven features of a character’s telling that have the potential to be used for characterization—voice, occasion, un/reliability, authority, self-consciousness, narrative control, and aesthetics. I also note that these features have their counterparts in the author’s telling. Finally, I propose that characterization via narration results from the interaction between the salient features of the character’s telling and their counterparts in the author’s telling. I develop these points through the analysis of four diverse case studies: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” Nadine Gordimer’s “Homage,” and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Full article

“If it wasn’t for the women” is a common refrain in Black Church culture, made most popular by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes’ sociology of religion work in the 1990s. As conversations grow around a perceived disconnection from the church—particularly among younger generations—many Black congregations and denominations are asking the following question: Where do we go from here? One possible response is to ask the women. Black women have long been central to the sustenance and theological framing of the Black Church. However, many contemporary Black women theologians and church-adjacent writers are reshaping religious discourse in ways that move beyond traditional ecclesial boundaries and into the interiority of Black womanhood. This turn should be considered essential in any reimagining of the Black Church. This paper employs content analysis to examine five contemporary works by Black women thinkers—Candice Benbow, Lyvonne Briggs, Tricia Hersey, EbonyJanice Moore, and Cole Arthur Riley—whose writings reflect Black women’s embodied spirituality, theological imagination, cultural meaning-making, and institutional critique within Black religious life. Rather than signaling a decline in moral or spiritual life, their work points to the search for sacred spaces that are more liberative, inclusive, and attuned to lived experience. Through a thematic analysis of Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique; Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith; Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis; Language and Rhetorical Strategies; Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy; and Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation, this study contributes to the evolving conversation on Black women’s spirituality, leadership in religious spaces, and a possible iteration of the Black Church. Full article

This article examines the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic framing of democracy and human rights in Egypt following the 2013 military coup, contributing to scholarship on the movement’s adaptation to repression and political exclusion. Employing framing analysis, this study analyzes official statements from Ikhwanonline from 2015 to 2024, when the old guard regained control over the organization’s messaging, in order to explore how the movement operated to reclaim political legitimacy amid repression, exile, and internal fragmentation. The findings indicate that despite the failure of its strategic commitment to democracy as a pathway to political dominance—culminating in its ousting—the old guard continues to espouse this framework. The movement frames its predicament and struggle as part of the Egyptian people’s broader fight against oppression and authoritarianism. This rhetorical continuity persists despite internal divisions and reformist calls for a more proactive approach, highlighting the movement’s reliance on established discursive strategies not only to confront regime repression but also to avoid engaging with questions of institutional reform. Full article

In contemporary New Testament studies, the question of whether Paul employed Greco-Roman rhetoric in his writings and preaching remains contentious. A prominent critic of Paul’s rhetorical usage is Duane Litfin, whose works, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1–4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric (1994) and Paul’s Theology of Preaching: The Apostle’s Challenge to the Art of Persuasion in Ancient Corinth (2015), argue that Paul outright rejected rhetoric in favor of a straightforward proclamation of the gospel. Litfin asserts that Paul viewed himself as a herald rather than a rhetorician, that his preaching was devoid of rhetorical adornment, and that 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:5 represents a universal theology of preaching. Litfin further suggests that Paul did not employ rhetoric in his Acts sermons, thereby aligning his epistolary and Acts portrayals of Paul. This article critically evaluates Litfin’s position by addressing five key issues. First, it challenges Litfin’s claim that Paul rejected rhetoric generally, arguing instead that Paul likely repudiated sophistic rhetoric or ornate styles rather than rhetoric per se. Second, it disputes Litfin’s dichotomy between heralds and orators, contending that Paul, identified as an apostle rather than a herald, was not bound by such a false binary. Third, it critiques Litfin’s assumption that 1 Corinthians 1–4 serves as Paul’s comprehensive theology of preaching, arguing instead that the passage is context-specific and not indicative of a universal preaching methodology. Fourth, it rejects Litfin’s view of 1 Corinthians as an apology for Paul’s ministry and style, suggesting instead that it addresses Corinthian divisions and promotes unity. Lastly, the article refutes Litfin’s claim that Paul did not use rhetoric in Acts, highlighting that the rhetorical nature of Acts’ speeches suggests otherwise. Ultimately, this article argues that Paul did not categorically reject rhetoric but utilized it in various forms to effectively communicate the gospel. Full article

Differing English translations of Franz Kafka’s “Josefine, the Singer or The Mouse People” have inspired diverse critical readings of the story. As a post-liminal text, a translation retrospectively highlights the ambiguity of the original’s rhetorical meaning. Read as a metaphor for artificial intelligence (A.I.), “Josefine” reflects an uncanny sort of regenerated reality as a conflicted narrator ponders the meaning of Josefine’s song following her disappearance. Likewise, the form produced by A.I. programs like ChatGPT following an initial human input is typically that of a narrative, albeit one devoid of creativity, replaced instead with algorithmic determinism. Philosophical questions about the discursive potential of technology such as generative A.I. pose challenges to the definitional assumptions about the form narrative takes in rhetorical situations, wherein the audience/reader is left with a message untethered from its prompter/writer. Full article

Climate denialism represents a significant challenge to public awareness and the implementation of effective environmental policies. In Portugal, as in other countries, social networks have been the place where denialist ideas are disseminated, influencing the public perception of the climate crisis. This research aims to understand how denialist discourse manifests and spreads on digital platforms. The research question of this work is: how does climate denialist discourse manifest itself on social media in Portugal? This work has two objectives: (1) to analyze the arguments and discursive strategies used by climate deniers in comments on Facebook, specifically on the pages of the three largest Portuguese newspapers, and (2) to understand the social and discursive dynamics that underpin their beliefs. This work adopted a qualitative methodology that involved manual data collection during the month of September 2024. Posts about climate that were informative were selected. The comments were examined manually and categorized by type of discourse. This approach enabled capturing specific nuances and contexts of denial discourses, providing a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. The study concluded that (I) comments that use fallacies or rhetoric that deny the climate crisis tended to receive more “likes” and approval from users; (II) fallacies that do not offer scientific evidence to refute the existence of climate change were identified in all these comments. Full article

This article aims to offer Yi Kwangsu’s The Heartless (Mujŏng, 1917), the first modern Korean novel, as an emblem of hybrid religiosity in colonial modernity that sheds light on an ambivalent alterity in the problem of hell in non-Western cultures. To the extent that the problem of hell in Christianity pertains to the question of why God allows evil to exist eternally, God’s omnipotent authority with justice and fairness beyond the grave is placed at the center of the inquiry into the ultimate standard of moral goodness the religious feasibility of which justifies the existence of sinners suffering eternal damnation in hell. But the co-existence of the omnipotent God and unrepentant sinners is not always questioned in the religiosity of hell in non-Western cultures. The Christian imaginary of hell in non-Western cultures often demarcates the question of God’s sovereignty from the sufferings of sinners in the problem of hell. Based on these observations, this article will investigate Yi’s narratives of hell in The Heartless, which are associated with Christianity but intertwined with his ethical demands for shaping a new individuality beyond the traditional hybrid religiosity of hell. Specifically, first, we will show that Yi’s Christian imaginary of hell is reformulated through the traditional imaginaries of hell in which, regardless of the existence of God’s sovereignty over the created order, the sufferings of sinners in hell function to secure social norms and orders. In doing so, we claim that the Christian imaginary of hell in The Heartless is relegated to a rhetorical means to beget the need for the self-awakening of the inner-self through which individual desires can be freed from the influences of Confucian morality as well as Christian theodicy. Second, in comparison with Lu Xun’s sympathetic relocation of Christian spirituality within the traditional Chinese imaginaries of hell in his longing for modern subjectivity, we explore Yi’s hybrid religiosity within colonial modernity, the vitality of which cannot be confined within the simple dichotomy between Western and non-Western cultures. At this juncture, the upshot of Yi’s hybrid religiosity within colonial modernity is that the theodicy of hell in Christianity can be displaced and thereby disenfranchised from the centrality of the search for a new individuality. Full article

Since the 2015 refugee crisis, when over 850,000 refugees and migrants reached European shores, migration has sparked intense political and social debates that dominate Europe’s political and media agenda. As a key entry point for refugees and migrants, Greece plays a central role in this ongoing crisis. This study examines how migration has been framed in three major Greek news outlets from 2015 to 2022. This study is groundbreaking as it goes beyond analyzing how mainstream media portray migration, migrants, and refugees. It also examines how the media frame the rhetoric and actions of far-right and right-wing populist parties in relation to migration, offering a more comprehensive and nuanced perspective. Analyzing 9840 opinion articles, it identifies two dominant frames: (a) a ‘political threat’ frame, reflecting concerns over the rise of the far-right in Europe driven by anti-migration rhetoric, and (b) a dual ‘security-humanitarianism’ frame, highlighting tensions between security needs and the imperative to uphold the human rights of refugees and immigrants, reflecting broader societal anxieties. The existence of a political threat frame and a dual-identity frame leads to question the prior conceptualization of security threats and strictly segregated frames in prior literature regarding established framing practices on migration. Full article

In this study, we employed the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the regulatory focus theory (RFT) to Greek government communication in the context of the 1987 and 1996 military crises with Turkey. Considering the value of timeliness in political communication, we analyzed the rhetoric of prime ministers and spokespersons during 40 days as depicted in the press. The purpose of this comparative analysis is, by leveraging content analysis, to examine the crisis communication strategies, the spokespersons’ contributions to this process, and to evaluate the rhetoric of the main addresses of the two prime ministers. This led us to propose the following research questions for consideration: (a) What were the government’s crisis communication strategies during the 1987 and 1996 crises? (b) In terms of regulatory focus theory, what rhetoric did each prime minister employ in his main address? (c) What was the contribution of the respective spokesperson? This study has significant theoretical and practical implications for political and public administration managers and consultants, as the first study examining such situations under the prism of SCCT and RFT. Results indicate that divergent government communication strategies were applied, while the spokespersons’ contribution impacted public and intra-party trust and societal endorsement. Full article

In NT scholarship, the Paul Within Judaism approach has gained considerable momentum. In this approach to Paul’s discourse on identity, a distinction is drawn between “Jewish” and gentile followers of Christ. “Jewish” followers, including Paul, are considered those that remain fully Torah-observant, whereas gentile followers are regarded as not fully Torah-observant, especially with respect to circumcision. In this contribution, Paul’s identity in relation to first-century “Judaism” and/or historical Israel is reconsidered. The main question that is asked in this regard is whether the Paul Within Judaism approach is a viable position in light of the hermeneutical difficulties surrounding first-century “Judaism”, as well as Paul’s own rhetoric around the Ἰουδαῖοι (“Jews”/“Judaeans”). Another question that is asked is whether Ἰσραήλ (“Israel”) and the Ἰουδαῖοι point to the exact same entity. Would it be more accurate to see Paul as being within Israel as one of God’s covenant people than as remaining a Ἰουδαῖος (“Jew”/“Judaean”)? Or did Paul leave his identity as a Ἰουδαῖος or as part of Israel behind for a new identity to be defined around Israel’s Messiah only? Lastly, it is considered whether Paul’s discourse on identity leaves room for an identity in Christ that is inclusive of an identity as a Ἰουδαῖος or as being part of Israel, or whether the identity in Christ excludes the latter. Full article

Media ethics has long been haunted by the question of representing human beings’ vulnerability to violence. While journalism and photojournalism have an obligation to report on the realities of violence and suffering in the world, the “spectacle of suffering” is fraught with ethical dilemmas. In this essay, I seek to theorize the ethics of vulnerability to violence in media representation. As a starting point, I argue for the politics of embodiment as a generative process that constitutes differential vulnerabilities. I move then to consider the way embodied vulnerabilities play out in the media, as exemplified by recent events such as the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements as well as in times of war, from Vietnam to, more recently, Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. This leads to considerations of spectatorship: who looks and who is looked at? How are these relations of gazing related to the vectors of social and geopolitical power? Are images of embodied vulnerability simply media spectacles that reinforce power hierarchies, or are they powerful prosocial messages that might mobilize humanitarian activism? To address these epistemic questions, I propose that the feminist ethics of care encompasses an invitational rhetoric that can guide media praxis. Care ethics is aligned with various religious epistemologies, and because of that, I argue for it as an umbrella framework that has application in a variety of national and cultural contexts. Full article

Every preacher has a unique homiletical theory evident in their preaching, regardless of whether it is understood through scholarly examination. Homiletical theory is the academic examination of disciplines in the understanding of the methodological functionality in preaching. Historically, theology and rhetoric constitute frames of reference in homiletical theory. However, as the field evolves, other frames of reference emerge, including pastoral care. In this paper, I argue that homiletical theory is a pedagogical paradigm in which the lead partner, either rhetoric or theology, determines the point of departure for teaching, with emphasis on the rhetorical situation or the theological implications. Therefore, understanding one’s homiletical theory can lead to a pedagogical experience that translates to more effective preaching by developing a coherent delineation from theory to praxis. As a case study, I use my approach to teaching students how to preach funerals with a rhetorical point of departure that focuses on answering the existential question: how then shall we live now that our loved one has died? Full article

This study examines persistent racism, despite its formal denial, through an interdisciplinary approach that combines critical race theories, whiteness study and social psychology. It questions whether the analytical and empirical distinction between different forms of prejudice—despite their coexistence—can yield positive outcomes in the fight against racism. Considering the case of the Roma community in Italy, specifically within the universalistic approach of the Italian school system, the level of prejudice was measured in a sample of 305 middle school teachers. The main findings confirm the persistence of blatant prejudice concealed beneath a veneer of subtle racism and reveal that an educational institution’s rhetorical commitment to democracy may not substantially impact the behavior of democratic teachers when interacting with Roma individuals. The systemic inequalities ingrained within the education system are reminiscent of colonial times, where practices that once suppressed the potential of Africans are now used against Italian Roma citizens. This article finally suggests how teacher training might be improved to reduce racism, based on the different profiles of prejudicial attitudes detected among teachers. Full article

In this paper, I focus on the puzzling ending of the apostolic letter in Acts 15 in which the addressees are told that if they hold to four “essential” prohibitions, they will “do well” (εὖ πράξετε, v. 29). The question as to how, exactly, can destabilise some understandings of the decree, with alternative translations creating different problems, and particularly so where theological commitments are at play. Following Danker’s call for greater attention to this phrase, I undertake a fresh, stratified survey of Greek usage across corpora ranging from the arguably less to the more proximate and bring this into dialogue with the senses given in various literary and social approaches to the decree involving epistolary rhetoric, reciprocity theory, and intertextuality. This reveals how purely linguistic data can stand in tension with compositional arguments in different ways and require a more complex arbitration between possibility, likelihood and coherence when both lexical- and discourse-level constraints are applied. Whilst not solving the problem of the decree outright, observing the impacts of different readings of εὖ πράξετε on the delicate balances involved presses some oblique but productive questions into the interpretive task. Full article

The wide circulation of conspiracy narratives and their frequent intertwining with populist rhetoric is both an element of concern and a topic of intense scientific and philosophical debate. The depth of the link between conspiracy theories and populism represents a crucial issue whose comprehension can facilitate understanding their specific nature and the factors behind their diffusion in public communication. To this end, it is necessary to cultivate an interdisciplinary approach and great critical attention, eschewing monocausal explanations. This paper addresses the question of the essentially political nature of conspiracism, confronting the recent epistemological debate that, by putting the positivist paradigm aside, has sought to explore and understand the socio-cultural roots of conspiracy rhetoric, with its sceptical, antagonistic and hermetic traits. By integrating the reflections of epistemologists such as Cassam or Harris with the considerations of political scientists such as Taggart and with Schmitt’s radical reflections on politics, it is perhaps possible to reintegrate the different approaches to populist conspiracism into an overall social genealogical perspective, thanks also to recent demographic elaborations. Thus, we could ascribe the spread of conspiracism to the prevalence in societies of a hyperpolitical discursive regime, i.e., founded on the principle of opposition, without the possibility of compromise, between different groups and interests. At the basis of such Manichaeism, it is plausible to place in the first place the growing inequalities and related social disintegration, which hinder the circulation of trust and recognition between individuals and groups, thus ending up undermining democracy at its roots, as a political system that legitimises and thus peacefully regulates conflict. Full article