Teaching rhetoric: Or why rhetoric isn't just another kind of philosophy or literary criticism

At the conclusion of the Evanston conference, the groups that had been working on Pedagogy affirmed the position: ‘ “What makes rhetoric rhetoric is its teaching tradition.” The formation of an alliance among the various scholarly societies with a self‐identified interest in rhetoric offers a unique opportunity to advance a collective assertion of what rhetoric scholars study and teach, what binds our several traditions together as a disciplinary practice, what are its disciplinary strengths in the development of our students’ capacity (dunamis) as individuals, and why this mode of education is valuable for a free society. Three pedagogy groups developed far‐reaching proposals for the ways we might reassert rhetoric education's centrality in the modern university. Spanning these was their call for ARS to commission a manifesto recovering the value of rhetoric education as central to civic education.