Editor's Welcome

Editor's Welcome Welcome to the inaugural issue of Rhetoric & Public Affairs. This new, interdisciplinary quarterly is the result of many years of effort on the part of numerous people. More importantly, it is the result of intellectual trends that have now become clear to almost everyone in the humanities and social sciences. Rhetoric, known for centuries as the harlot of the arts, has found a new respectability. That this renewed interest in the possibilities of rhetoric as a mode of doing public business and of bringing a sustained critique to bear on that doing should arise at the historical moment when the Enlightenment project seems to be exhausted is, perhaps , not surprising. The history of rhetoric as a disciplined mode of thought and action is a continuous cycle of establishment and disestablishment—one moment the queen of the arts and the next the harlot of the pseudo-sciences. Yet rhetoric remains what it has always been—one of the native capacities of human beings. This capacity to invent and discover ideas, to give those ideas shape, form, and order, to express those ideas using particular linguistic codes, styles, and idioms, and to articulate those ideas in speech, writing, or some other symbolic medium to an audience of listeners or readers—all with a view toward the accomplishment of some purpose or end—is characteristically human. It is also the dominant way in which we humans carry on our public affairs. As used in this journal, public affairs refers to any matter that bears upon the welfare of the polis. And as McLuhan reminded us, the polis is now the world-atlarge —from municipal government to international diplomacy, from the formal settings of executive, legislative, and judicial proceedings to the informal venues of street-level politics, interest group advocacy, campaign tactics, and newspaper editorials . All of the various forms of symbolic inducement that make up what Kenneth Burke once called the human barnyard are within the purview of Rhetoric & Public Affairs. On one level, such matters may seem rather mundane, if not downright trivial— the common stuff of everyday life in the post-Cold War world. Yet it is often that which we take for granted—the common, the accepted, the unquestioned—that masks the most profound issues, sometimes blinding us to new ways of thinking and acting in our world. Such seemingly small matters as language, labels, iv Rhetoric & Public Affairs metaphors, names, images, definitions, and the like invite us to know our world— or, at least, to believe that we know our world—and to act in ways consistent with that knowledge. On such seemingly fleeting stuff as rhetoric rests such weighty matters as race relations, nuclearism, the environment, gender relations, educational policy, and international diplomacy—all topics, by the way, that will be addressed in Volume 1 of Rhetoric & Public Affairs. This inaugural issue features articles by scholars from communication studies (Campbell, Zarefsky, and Leff), history (Brands), and English (Fields). In subsequent issues you will find essays by scholars from political science, religious studies, journalism, American studies, and sociology, among other disciplines. From time to time, there will be special, thematically focused issues that will bring together leading thinkers from a variety of backgrounds. Two such special issues—one on Darwinism in the public school classroom and one on civil rights in the postmodern era—are already in preparation. I have commissioned the articles in this inaugural issue and the one to follow. Beginning with Volume 1, Number 3, in September 1998, however, Rhetoric 6· Public Affairs will become a fully peer-reviewed, refereed journal. If you find value in this inaugural issue, I invite you to become a charter subscriber; moreover, I invite you to contribute your own research to Rhetoric & Public Affairs and to invite your colleagues to do likewise. On behalf of Michigan State University Press and the entire editorial board of Rhetoric & Public Affairs, I welcome you to this inaugural issue. Martin J. Medhurst Editor ...