Jewish Studies

The Available Means of Persuasion: Mapping a Theory and Pedagogy of Multimodal Public Rhetoric

Author(s):
David M. Sheridan
Jim Ridolfo
Anthony J. Michel
Book summary:

From the beginning, rhetoric has been a productive and practical art aimed at preparing citizens to participate in communal life. Possibilities for this participation are continually evolving in light of cultural and technological changes. The Available Means of Persuasion: Mapping a Theory and Pedagogy of Multimodal Public Rhetoric explores the ways that public rhetoric has changed due to emerging technologies that enable us to produce, reproduce, and distribute compositions that integrate visual, aural, and alphabetic elements. David M. Sheridan, Jim Ridolfo, and Anthony J. Michel argue that to exploit such options fully, rhetorical theory and pedagogy need to be reconfigured. Rhetorical concepts such as invention, context, and ethics need to be transformed, which has important implications for the writing classroom, among other sites of rhetorical education.

Sheridan, Ridolfo, and Michel suggest an expanded understanding of the ancient rhetorical concept of kairos (the opportune moment) as a unifying heuristic that can help theorists, teachers, and practitioners understand, teach, and produce multimodal public rhetoric more effectively. In this expanded sense, kairos includes considerations of genre and dissemination through material-cultural contexts. Ultimately, they argue that culture itself is at stake in our understanding of multimodal public rhetoric. Important cultural categories such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and place, are produced and reproduced not just through the dynamics of language but through the full range of multimodal practices.

Publication year:
2012
Publisher:
Parlor Press
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Jim Ridolfo's work focuses on the intersection of rhetorical theory and digital technology. His first book, The Available Means of Persuasion: Mapping a Theory and Pedagogy of Multimodal Public Rhetoric (with David Sheridan and Anthony Michel) was published in 2012 by Parlor Press. His second book, Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities (co-edited with William Hart-Davidson) was published by University of Chicago Press in 2015 and received the Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. His third book, Digital Samaritans: Rhetorical Delivery and Engagement in the Digital Humanities, was published by University of Michigan Press in 2015 and received the 2017 Conference on College Composition and Communication Research Impact Award. He is also editor of WRD's homegrown textbook Town Branch Writing Collection, and has an edited collection (with William Hart-Davidson) forthcoming from U Pittsbugh Press, Rhet Ops: Rhetoric and Information Warfare.Ridolfo is a recipient of a 2012 Middle East and North Africa Regional Research Fulbright for the West Bank and Israel, and the 2014 Richard Ohmann Award for Outstanding Article in College English.
Book URL:
http://www.parlorpress.com/available_means

Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities

Editor(s):
Jim Ridolfo
William Hart-Davidson
Book summary:

The digital humanities is a rapidly growing field that is transforming humanities research through digital tools and resources. Researchers can now quickly trace every one of Issac Newton’s annotations, use social media to engage academic and public audiences in the interpretation of cultural texts, and visualize travel via ox cart in third-century Rome or camel caravan in ancient Egypt. Rhetorical scholars are leading the revolution by fully utilizing the digital toolbox, finding themselves at the nexus of digital innovation.



Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities is a timely, multidisciplinary collection that is the first to bridge scholarship in rhetorical studies and the digital humanities. It offers much-needed guidance on how the theories and methodologies of rhetorical studies can enhance all work in digital humanities, and vice versa. Twenty-three essays over three sections delve into connections, research methodology, and future directions in this field. Jim Ridolfo and William Hart-Davidson have assembled a broad group of more than thirty accomplished scholars. Read together, these essays represent the cutting edge of research, offering guidance that will energize and inspire future collaborations.

Publication year:
2014
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Award(s):
2015 Computers and Writing Distinguished Book Award
Praise:
Quote:
A much needed volume in the fields of rhetoric studies and digital humanities."
Credit:
Ken S. McAllister
Quote:
“Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities is an important collection. The affinities between the digital humanities and rhetoric and writing studies are numerous, varied, and brimming with potential for mutual collaboration.”
Credit:
Kevin G. Smith
Quote:
“A good introduction for those coming from a rhetoric background, and is of interest not only to those in English studies generally, but also to digital humanists in informatics programs.”
Credit:
Alan Bilansky
Quote:
"Ridolfo and Hart-Davidson have produced a volume that interrogates the most important questions facing both rhetoric scholars and teachers who are interested in the digital humanities and digital humanists who are interested in the rhetorical dimensions of multimodal texts. Avoiding the negative aspects of territorialism and disciplinary politics, the contributors remix theories, practices, and methods in new and exciting ways, mapping productive relationships between rhetorical studies and the digital humanities and illuminating how these areas intersect and interanimate one another. This volume should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of writing and reading."
Credit:
Stuart A. Selber
Quote:
"Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities is a landmark collection for scholars in rhetoric and writing studies. Its attention to procedurality, coding, scholarly communication, archives, and computer-aided methodologies, among other things, maps many of the important changes in disciplinary terrain prompted by the emergence of the digital humanities. It’s also a compelling demonstration of the role that rhetoric and writing studies can and should play in discussions about digital humanities. This book will provide colleagues across the disciplines with a strong sense of the ways that rhetorical studies might intersect with their own work."
Credit:
Collin Brooke
Quote:
“An important and timely exploration of the many ties that bind the digital humanities and composition/rhetoric. Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities is a much-needed book that will stir conversations in both fields.”
Credit:
Matthew K. Gold
Bio:
Short bio:
Jim Ridolfo's work focuses on the intersection of rhetorical theory and digital technology. His first book, The Available Means of Persuasion: Mapping a Theory and Pedagogy of Multimodal Public Rhetoric (with David Sheridan and Anthony Michel) was published in 2012 by Parlor Press. His second book, Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities (co-edited with William Hart-Davidson) was published by University of Chicago Press in 2015 and received the Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. His third book, Digital Samaritans: Rhetorical Delivery and Engagement in the Digital Humanities, was published by University of Michigan Press in 2015 and received the 2017 Conference on College Composition and Communication Research Impact Award.He is also editor of WRD's homegrown textbook Town Branch Writing Collection, and has an edited collection (with William Hart-Davidson) forthcoming from U Pittsbugh Press, Rhet Ops: Rhetoric and Information Warfare. Ridolfo is a recipient of a 2012 Middle East and North Africa Regional Research Fulbright for the West Bank and Israel, and the 2014 Richard Ohmann Award for Outstanding Article in College English.
Book URL:
https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo18991168.html

Digital Samaritans: Rhetorical Delivery and Engagement in the Digital Humanities

Author(s):
Jim Ridolfo
Book summary:

Digital Samaritans explores rhetorical delivery and cultural sovereignty in the digital humanities. The exigence for the book is rooted in a practical digital humanities project based on the digitization of manuscripts in diaspora for the Samaritan community, the smallest religious/ethnic group of 770 Samaritans split between Mount Gerizim in the Palestinian Authority and in Holon, Israel. Based on interviews with members of the Samaritan community and archival research, Digital Samaritans explores what some Samaritans want from their diaspora of manuscripts, and how their rhetorical goals and objectives relate to the contemporary existential and rhetorical situation of the Samaritans as a living, breathing people.

Publication year:
2015
Publisher:
University of Michigan Press
Award(s):
Winner of the 2017 Conference on College Composition and Communicaiton Research Impact Award.
Praise:
Quote:
“Digital Samaritans is a scholarly examination of the Samaritan version of the Torah as revealed through a close study of texts and oral history video interviews with those who claim Samaritan Studies as their life’s work. Through the interviews, the Samaritans themselves reveal how the digitizing of Samaritan manuscripts can advance global knowledge about their existence and culture. Unsurprisingly, Jim Ridolfo and his research are far ahead of the rest of us in bringing together digital humanities, rhetorical studies, writing studies and the crafting of a research methodology that honors the past while looking to the future. Ridolfo is to be applauded for this outstanding twenty-first century historical and intellectual work.”
Credit:
Gail Hawisher, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Quote:
“The rhetorical figure of the Good Samaritan persists in contemporary culture, most notably in the familiar names of hospitals. But the history and culture of the Samaritans is so much more. In Digital Samaritans, Jim Ridolfo takes us on a fascinating journey during which a biblical parable becomes a symbol of a living, breathing people interested in extending themselves via the ‘textual diaspora’ created by a digital humanities project. Just as the culture of the Samaritans provides a bridge linking multiple peoples, Ridolfo argues, this case study provides incredible insight into the digital humanities and rhetorical studies, while also carrying wider implications for academic partnerships in the globally connected twenty-first century.”
Credit:
Virginia Kuhn, University of Southern California
Quote:
An engrossing case study of the confluences of sacred rhetorics, digital humanities, cultural identities, global politics, and miraculous serendipity, Jim Ridolfo’s pilgrimage Digital Samaritans illustrates the sheer enormity of the work we’re called to do. With care, compassion, and concern, Ridolfo’s experiences and reflections on Samaritan sovereignty, digital delivery and ‘rhetorical diaspora’ resonate and demonstrate the satisfying power of a scholarly adventure, yes, in the tradition of Richard Altick. Read and be challenged. Rhetoric’s digital humanists can no longer live by words and bytes alone, but rather by everything that proceeds. Every historical raindrop. Every political fire. Every lost text. Every new font. Every heart. Every soul.”
Credit:
Hugh Burns, Texas Woman’s University
Quote:
“Ridolfo does a masterful job describing a wide range of rhetorical practices around digital collections of Samaritan manuscripts. While documenting his own experiences digitizing holy scriptures that have been dispersed geographically around the world in an attempt to serve the needs of a vanishing population in the Middle East, he forges connections between currently disconnected domains of rhetorical studies, the digital humanities, and engaged scholarship. Ridolfo uses this fascinating case study to explore the complex custody issues that emerge when diasporic communities archive traditional knowledge in computational media and work across distributed online networks. This is compelling scholarship that cuts across many disciplines with a rich interpretation of what religious identity and cultural sovereignty might mean for all of us in the digital age.”
Credit:
Elizabeth Losh, University of California, San Diego
Quote:
“Jim Ridolfo’s timely Digital Samaritans takes us through a ‘clash of values’ that characterizes Digital Humanities—the conflict between interpretive experts and communities who create texts. His contextually rich re-framing of the debate as both productive and rhetorical shows Digital Humanists a way out of the stalemate.”
Credit:
Andrew Mara, North Dakota State University
Quote:
"Digital Samaritans by Jim Ridolfo offers a new contribution in the digital humanities field, not only because it highlights the cultural sovereignty of an ancient, now a minority, group of people, the Samaritans, but also because it opens a dialogue about the numerous advantages of digitization for the humanities."
Credit:
Journal of Folklore Research
Bio:
Short bio:
Jim Ridolfo's work focuses on the intersection of rhetorical theory and digital technology. His first book, The Available Means of Persuasion: Mapping a Theory and Pedagogy of Multimodal Public Rhetoric (with David Sheridan and Anthony Michel) was published in 2012 by Parlor Press. His second book, Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities (co-edited with William Hart-Davidson) was published by University of Chicago Press in 2015 and received the Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award. His third book, Digital Samaritans: Rhetorical Delivery and Engagement in the Digital Humanities, was published by University of Michigan Press in 2015 and received the 2017 Conference on College Composition and Communication Research Impact Award. He is also editor of WRD's homegrown textbook Town Branch Writing Collection, and has an edited collection (with William Hart-Davidson) forthcoming from U Pittsbugh Press, Rhet Ops: Rhetoric and Information Warfare. Ridolfo is also a recipient of a 2012 Middle East and North Africa Regional Research Fulbright for the West Bank and Israel, and the 2014 Richard Ohmann Award for Outstanding Article in College English.
Book URL:
https://www.press.umich.edu/5972700/digital_samaritans
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