Books by Melody Lehn
Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy
"In May 2010, more than 1,000 scholars from around the globe gathered for the Rhetoric Society of... more "In May 2010, more than 1,000 scholars from around the globe gathered for the Rhetoric Society of America’s fourteenth biennial conference to contemplate two of the many dimensions of rhetoric, one divisive and conflictive, the other irenic and unifying. Cicero identified these divergent qualities, while Kenneth Burke took this either/or split personality and transformed it into a space where identification and division are found together, where sameness and diversity embrace the work of rhetoric.
As a product of the conference, Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy offers 32 essays that reflect on this realm of rhetoric and reveals a landscape that is vivid as well as varied, apparent as well as dense. These absorbing and thoughtful contributions ask, among many other things, what are the limits of rhetorical concord? What role does race and gender play in the give-and-take of unity and difference? Is there a viable alternative to agreeing to disagree? How can rhetorical pedagogy respond to the political controversies of today?"
Journal Articles by Melody Lehn
Presidential Studies Quarterly, 2022
Though widely perceived as an ineffectual first lady, Pat Nixon was a diplomatic asset to the Nix... more Though widely perceived as an ineffectual first lady, Pat Nixon was a diplomatic asset to the Nixon administration. This rhetorical history investigates her inventive use of "personal diplomacy" on a goodwill mission to Peru in 1970. Despite competing directives from the West Wing and State Department, Nixon elected to speak in her own voice and deployed personal diplomacy as a multifaceted rhetorical strategy to accomplish humanitarian goals. Nixon's rhetorical performance yielded significant, yet limited diplomatic gains and complicates recent scholarship suggesting that the gendered nature of first lady diplomacy renders it a largely routine, essentially symbolic, and politically safe endeavor.
Introduction to Forum on Southern Archives in the 2015 Carolinas Communication Annual.
Journal article for the forum "Letting Southern Archives Speak" for the 2015 Carolinas Communicat... more Journal article for the forum "Letting Southern Archives Speak" for the 2015 Carolinas Communication Annual.
Book Chapters by Melody Lehn
Reframing Rhetorical History: Cases, Theories, and Methodologies, 2022
Like Wildfire: The Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Sit-Ins, 2020
Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings: Was Blind but Now I See, Dec 2019
could have selected a crime scene more sacred" than the church familiarly known as "Mother Emanue... more could have selected a crime scene more sacred" than the church familiarly known as "Mother Emanuel." The shootings were not, Remnick insisted, "random or merely tragic": they were "pointedly racist; they were political." 1 "This time it's different," Gary Younge argued in an editorial for The Guardian. The shootings signified nothing less than "a doubling down on the nation's twin pathologies of racism and guns," neither of which, Younge and others have lamented since, "are going anywhere soon." 2 For black women, the racist and political implications of the shootings were as unmistakable as they were ironic. The killer told the fallen parishioners that "you rape our women, and you're taking over our country." 3 And yet, no fewer than six of his nine victims-Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson-were women. A seventh woman, Polly Sheppard, crouched under a table hiding and praying as the killer approached to ask if he had shot her. After learning she was unharmed, he said he would let her live so that she could "tell the story of what happened." 4 Sheppard and her friend Felicia Sanders, whose son died trying to shield his aunt Susie Jackson from gunfire, both survived.
Book Reviews by Melody Lehn
Uploads
Books by Melody Lehn
As a product of the conference, Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy offers 32 essays that reflect on this realm of rhetoric and reveals a landscape that is vivid as well as varied, apparent as well as dense. These absorbing and thoughtful contributions ask, among many other things, what are the limits of rhetorical concord? What role does race and gender play in the give-and-take of unity and difference? Is there a viable alternative to agreeing to disagree? How can rhetorical pedagogy respond to the political controversies of today?"
Journal Articles by Melody Lehn
Book Chapters by Melody Lehn
Book Reviews by Melody Lehn
As a product of the conference, Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy offers 32 essays that reflect on this realm of rhetoric and reveals a landscape that is vivid as well as varied, apparent as well as dense. These absorbing and thoughtful contributions ask, among many other things, what are the limits of rhetorical concord? What role does race and gender play in the give-and-take of unity and difference? Is there a viable alternative to agreeing to disagree? How can rhetorical pedagogy respond to the political controversies of today?"