Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writers use to inform, persuade, and motivate their audiences. Rhetoric also provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations.
Thomas Stephen Szasz was a Hungarian-American academic and psychiatrist. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, as what he saw as the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as scientism.
Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning 'the right or critical moment'. In modern Greek, kairos also means 'weather' or 'time'.
Towson University is a public university in Towson, Maryland. Founded in 1866 as Maryland's first training school for teachers, Towson University is a part of the University System of Maryland. Since its founding, the university has evolved into eight subsidiary colleges with over 20,000 students. Its 329-acre campus is situated in Baltimore County, Maryland eight miles north of downtown Baltimore. Towson is one of the largest public universities in Maryland and still produces the most teachers of any university in the state.
Robert Laurent Caret is an American academic and university administrator. He is the former chancellor of the University System of Maryland and former president of San José State University, Towson University and the University of Massachusetts System.
This is a timeline of major events and changes related to Towson University and its predecessor institutions Maryland State Normal School (1866–1935), Maryland State Teachers College at Towson (1935–1963), Towson State College (1963–1976), and Towson State University (1976–1997).
The Towerlight is the online independent student newspaper at Towson University. It is run by Towson students, and frequently updates the campus on events and news. In the summer of 2008, Baltimore Student Media (BSM) was established by The Towerlight's staff and general manager. BSM is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing support for aspiring student journalists, photographers, videographers and graphic designers. In July 2008, Towson University agreed to sign over its rights to The Towerlight to BSM.
These are the former and current buildings and structures of Towson University and its predecessor institutions.
Doc is the official mascot of Towson University. He is named after former sports department head Donald "Doc" Minnegan.
James Lee Fisher was an American academic administrator and psychologist. He served as the ninth president of Towson State University from 1969 to 1978.
Lambda Pi Eta (ΛΠΗ) is the official Communication Studies honor society of the National Communication Association (NCA). As a member of the Association of College Honor Societies (ACHS), Lambda Pi Eta has more than 500 active chapters at four-year colleges and universities worldwide.
Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar is a Professor in Rhetoric and Public Culture and the Director of Center for Global Culture and Communication at Northwestern University. He is also Executive Director of the Center for Transcultural Studies, an independent scholarly research network concerned with global issues based in Chicago and New York. Gaonkar was closely associated with the influential journal Public Culture from the early 1990s, serving in various editorial capacities: associate editor (1992-2000), executive editor (2000-2009), and editor (2009-2011).
James A. Herrick was an American academic. He was the Guy Vanderjagt Professor of Communication and former communication chair at Hope College.
The rhetorical situation is an event that consists of an issue, an audience, and a set of constraints. A rhetorical situation arises from a given context or exigence. An article by Lloyd Bitzer introduced the model of the rhetorical situation in 1968, which was later challenged and modified by Richard E. Vatz (1973) and Scott Consigny (1974). More recent scholarship has further redefined the model to include more expansive views of rhetorical operations and ecologies.
Modern rhetoric has gone through many changes since the age of ancient Rome and Greece to fit the societal demands of the time. Kenneth Burke, who is largely credited for defining the notion of modern rhetoric, described modern rhetoric as
"rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic, and is continually born anew; the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols."
Michael Leff (1941–2010) was an internationally known U.S. scholar of rhetoric. He was a Professor and served as Chair of the Department of Communications Studies at the University of Memphis.
The White Student Union (WSU) was an unaffiliated white supremacist organization founded in Towson, Maryland by Matthew Heimbach, at the time a Towson University student. The group advocated for what it sees as the interests of "persons of European heritage". It has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. The organization rejected this label, stating in a blog post that "We do not hate any other race and we do not wish anyone harm". In May 2013 Heimbach said that the group would merge with the Traditionalist Youth Network which Heimbach described as an effort to build "a wide coalition of Kinist, social conservatives, Traditionalist Christians, believers in Right-wing politics, and other factions of the pro-white movement."
Jeffrey Alfred Schaler is a psychologist, author, editor, retired professor of justice, law, and society at American University, and former member of the psychology faculty at Johns Hopkins University. He is a prominent critic of psychiatric claims and practices, especially of treatment without consent. Schaler opposes the medicalization of addiction. He has had a private practice in existential therapy since the 1970s.
Susan Zaeske is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication Arts and Arts and was formerly Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters & Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sonja K. Foss is a rhetorical scholar and educator in the discipline of communication. Her research and teaching interests are in contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, feminist perspectives on communication, the incorporation of marginalized voices into rhetorical theory and practice, and visual rhetoric.
