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Rhetorics,
Ethics & the Power of the Sublime
Dr.
J. David Hester (Amador)
Recent work by Wilhelm Wuellner has reintroduced the rhetorical sublime after several hundred years of absence from the field. Its reappearance marks an important turning point at several levels: 1) through rhetoric, the sublime's relevance to discourse and power is resurrected from the restraints of arcane philosophical and aesthetic inquiry; 2) through the sublime, rhetoric finds its integrative function and ethical foundations; 3) through the rhetoric of the sublime, critics are transformed into stewards, diagnosticians, and therapists committed to serving communicative communities of diversity. This paper introduces some of Wuellner's key concepts and muses upon their implications for rhetoric, the sublime, and rhetorical criticism. In it, I argue that through the sublime we begin to see how ethics and rhetorics do not merely 'inform' each other (ethics' imposition upon an 'an-ethical method of communication, practice and analysis), but are fully integrated into each and every act of communication. I will then go on to explore how this new turn heralds an important opportunity for rhetoricians, biblical rhetoricians, aetheticians, ethicists and philosophers to learn from and speak to one another.
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