Rhetorical Landscapes in America: Variations on a Theme from Kenneth Burke - Hardcover

by Gregory Clark (Author)

At the same time a reading of Kenneth Burke and of tourist landscapes in America, Gregory Clark's new study explores the rhetorical power connected with American tourism. Looking specifically at a time when citizens of the United States first took to rail and then highway to become sightseers in their own country, Clark traces the rhetorical function of a wide-ranging set of tourist experiences. He explores how the symbolic experiences Americans share as tourists have helped residents of a vast and diverse nation adopt a national identity. In doing so he suggests that the rhetorical power of a national culture is wielded not only by public discourse but also by public experiences.

Author Biography

Gregory Clark studies rhetoric and the variety of ways that it operates in American culture. He is the author of Dialogue, Dialectic, and Conversation: A Social Perspective on the Function of Writing and coeditor of Oratorical Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Transformations in the Theory and Practice of Rhetoric. Clark is a professor of English at Brigham Young University and is editor of Rhetoric Society Quarterly. He lives in Provo, Utah.