Rhetoric and the Neurosciences: Engagement and Exploration

A Neurorhetoric of Incongruity

“…2 Scientizing rhetoric in this way forefronts foundationalist commitments, making the empirical strength of neuroscientific claims the bedrock on which we accept or reject rhetorical claims. Thus alongside such work come appeals for caution, for greater understanding and scrutiny of the neuroscientific work one brings to rhetoric, calls for rhetoricians to hold themselves responsible for not only understanding the neuroscientific claim, but also the processes by which it is established and/or bids for increasing collaboration between rhetoricians and neuroscientists, thus promoting rigor and guarding against the careless use of science (Rose, 1988;Brueggemann, 1989;Jack and Appelbaum, 2010;Mays and Jung, 2012, 47;Gruber et al, 2011).…”

“…Rhetoricians, for their part, have grappled with the specific questions that arise when bringing neuroscience to rhetoric (Jack and Applebaum, 2010;Mays and Jung, 2012;Gruber et al, 2011). Jordynn Jack and Gregory Applebaum usefully termed the entire endeavor "neurorhetorics," identifying the rhetorical analysis of neuroscientific discourses as "the rhetoric of neuroscience" while referring to the use of neuroscience research to derive insights into rhetorical processes "the neuroscience of rhetoric."…”

(Projection) mapping the brain

“…As new neuroscientific instruments such as MRI and EEG have made it possible to safely image living human brains, there has been a concurrent significant increase in data from neuroscientific research, in particular neuroimaging, and a proliferation of the use of neuroimages in the popular press. Scholars of rhetoric have problematised the 'seductive allure' of both neuroscientific explanations (Weisberg et al 2008) and of the neuroscientific images (Gruber et al 2011) that are often used in conjunction with such explanations.Against this background, a better understanding of neuroimages, which are referred to repeatedly in the debates and practices of neuroscience, became important for the realisation of the artwork as neuroimages are central to the way the work is produced.…”

Brain Culture: Neuroscience and Popular Media

“…On the rhetorical side, in a similar vein, rhetoricians are aiming to combine neurorhetorics with the rhetorics of neuroscience, helping neuroscientists search for the neural correlates of rhetorical concepts such as pathos, presence, or identification, as well as investigating the common tropes of brain talk, again ideally in tandem with neuroscientists who should share the concern over the widespread neuro-hype with the rhetoricians (Jack 2010; Jack and Appelbaum 2010; Papoulias and Callard 2010; Gruber et al . 2011).…”