Interesting account of the return of emotional appeals (the rhetoric of the closed fist) in the discourse of the 1960s. This contrasts to the logical argumentation (open hand) of earlier periods that resulted, most likely, from the shift from dialogic rhetoric to textual and text-like (instruction, etc) practices during the Renaissance.
(Sidenote: interesting comment on 290 about role of flattery and complex discourse in Renaissance rhetoric: suggests a favoring of complex, unconventional sentence structure and word usage. Similar / critiqued in Loves Labors Lost?)
Defines non-verbal rhetoric as “muscular rhetoric” or “body rhetoric” in reference to demonstrations, sit-ins, protests (291).
Really hilarious (and really, really awesome) description of new media on page 292.
There seems to be something strange going on with writing in this book. Corbett seems to treat writing as an extension of the verbal (obviously Derrida might have something to say about this).
“I see choices as the key concept of rhetoric. Accordingly, where the choices are arbitrarily pared down or eliminated, rhetoric beings to disappear” (293). (Does this explain why so many rhetoricians like Habermas?)
Discussion of a Wayne Booth incident that highlights interest over proof that might suggest why rhetoric is often so resistant to post-structuralsim.
“We have returned to the oral-aural world in which classical rhetoric had its beginnings 2000 years ago” (296).