Revisiting Edwin Black: Exhortation as a Prelude to Emotional–Material Rhetoric

Abstract

This essay extends efforts to facilitate emotional–material frameworks of rhetoric informed by strides in rhetorical and biological studies respectively. Specifically, I examine Edwin Black’s theory of exhortation in light of neurological theories of affect, emotion contagion, and embodiment. I argue Black’s theory offers a prescient precursor to emotional–material rhetoric but also demands revision in light of recent advances in neuroscience. I present two claims. First, I argue emotionally grounded rhetoric can exhort emotional–discursive connections and preference judgments absent the need to convert emotional experiences into formal beliefs. Second, I argue physiological indicators are at least as important as verbal discourse in facilitating emotional exhortation. Finally, I conclude with some theoretical implications for the emotional–material study of rhetoric.

• affect
• Edwin Black
• emotional rhetoric
• material rhetoric
• neurorhetoric
• pathos

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Susan Jarratt and the essay’s two anonymous reviewers for their attentive readings and valuable insight concerning earlier versions of this essay. He also thanks Celeste Condit for her kind intellectual generosity.