The Body and Rhetoric

I enjoyed the readings in Barnet, found them to be stimulating. All of the readings expanded the notion of argumentation in helpful ways, ways in which I think we don't normally associate with being in the realm of argumentation. The DeLuca article was particularly helpful in this way – and I found much of what he had to say resonant with the job talk that was given on Friday with regard to the rhetoric of graffiti. The lecturer was making the point that argument is all around us but in amorphous sort of ways that are very difficult to pin down. Deluca’s notions of body rhetoric as a sort of visual rhetoric was much in line with this. Living in Japan for many years, I came to understand how the body can be used in this form through its culture. The Japanese bow, for example, is interesting in that it conveys a lot of persuasive force and is absolutely essential to effective communication in Japan.