Inaugural lecture: 21st Century rhetoric at University Of East Anglia

Rhetoric is often assumed to be negative – as in ‘political rhetoric’ – or to be associated only with the ‘art of persuasion’ (Aristotle). In a more generous definition as ‘the arts of discourse’, rhetoric has a long tradition of considering how communication takes place in society. In this lecture, Prof Richard Andrews will consider ‘English’ as a subject or discipline, notions of creativity, and argumentation from a rhetorical perspective, concluding that the curriculum must change in schools and universities to accommodate the realities of 21st century rhetoric.