Abstract
Responding to the essays that make up the 2020 decennial special issue on the state of the art in rhetorical criticism, this essay takes a rhetoric of inquiry approach that asks what metaphors, invocations, appeals, devices, or patterns of rhetoric drive the communicative practices of these scholars, and what the implications of those choices might be for understanding the present and influencing the future shape of the field.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Justin Eckstein and Robert Rowland for their advice on earlier drafts of this essay.