Revisiting Edwin Black: Exhortation as a Prelude to Emotional–Material Rhetoric

Abstract

This essay extends efforts to facilitate emotional-material frameworks of rhetoric informed by strides in rhetorical and biological studies respectively. Specifically, I examine Edwin Black's theory of exhortation in light of neurological theories of affect, emotion contagion, and embodiment. I argue Black's theory offers a prescient precursor to emotional-material rhetoric but also demands revision in light of recent advances in neuroscience. I present two claims. First, I argue emotionally grounded rhetoric can exhort emotional-discursive connections and preference judgments absent the need to convert emotional experiences into formal beliefs. Second, I argue physiological indicators are at least as important as verbal discourse in facilitating emotional exhortation. Finally, I conclude with some theoretical implications for the emotional-material study of rhetoric.

The comic counterfactual: Laughter, affect, and civic alternatives

“…We know that "physiological indicators are at least as important as verbal discourse in facilitating emotional exhortation." 50 At a minimum, the comic methods seek to evoke a brief bodily change through laughter-which is instantly performed rather than logically debated-to shock citizens out of seeing an event in only one way, amplifying the rhetorical and critical focus. This rhetoric attempts to manage affective investments that often resist "signification and narrativization" through their assemblage of "felt attentions and obligations."…”