Glossary

Glossary

Archive: here used to refer to a collection of historical documents, usually but not necessarily a collection held and controlled by a college, university, or other institution

Composition: here defined as writing completed by college students for formal credit or other academic approval

Dissoi Logoi: different or opposing arguments; the title applied to an ancient and anonymously authored sophistic text featuring diametrically opposed statements

Dynaton: the possible; a state of being located between the actual and the ideal; may appear as to dynaton or dunaton; cognate with dynamis

Ecological Theories of Rhetoric: conceptions of rhetoric as interacting continuously with social, discursive, and natural phenomena

Elocution: the study of speech, with special attention paid to physical qualities such as voice and gestures; elocution was commonly taught in American colleges and universities in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century

Epideictic Rhetoric: Aristotelian category of rhetoric usually distinguished from the categories of forensic and deliberative rhetoric, and associated with language that praises or blames; speech common for ceremonial purposes

Epideixis: ancient use of language that emphasized display

Historical Reconstruction: according to Richard Rorty’s “The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres,” the privileging of historical understandings when studying information from a past time period

Junior College: category common in late-nineteenth-century to mid-twentieth-century America and used to describe postsecondary institutions that attended to nearby business, industrial, and social needs; offered academic training needed by students to do professional or semi-professional work; and prepared students to transfer to institutions conferring bachelor’s degrees

Kairos: the opportune time for communicating in a certain manner

Literary Societies: college student groups devoted to the study of literature and to the study and practice of competitive, and frequently intercollegiate, speaking and debating; literary societies were popular in America in the nineteenth century, especially in the antebellum period, and influenced civic opinion; sometimes the term also referred to non-collegiate speaking or debating groups

Neosophistic Rhetorical Theory: a late-twentieth-century-originated category of theory that mines ancient sophistic ideas from current vantage points and for contemporary purposes

Nomos: a formal rule or informal expectation governing behavior and, in a sophistic tradition, tied to the moral code held by members of a specific culture or community

Normal College (or Normal Department): an academic institution (or branch of an academic institution) offering studies in teacher training, especially in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century; individual cases varied, but many normal colleges began as “normal schools,” which focused on pre-college education

Rational Reconstruction: according to Richard Rorty, the privileging of current understandings when studying historical information

Recitation: in nineteenth-century American colleges and universities, a student’s recall of recently taught information

Sophistic Rhetoric: phrase used by some twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholars to synthesize a range of ancient teachings that eschewed certainty and absolute truth in favor of contingent arguments

Women’s Clubs: selective civic groups common in the early twentieth century and giving American women opportunities for individual cultivation and civic engagement, as well as participation in parliamentary procedure