The Politics of Style and the Style of Politics

by Brummett, Barry; Asenas, Jennifer J.; Brummett, Barry; Childers, Jay P.; Faina, Joe; Garza, Teresita; Gatchet, Amanda Davis; Greene, Carlnita P.; Johnson, Kevin A.; Mack, Ashley Noel; Naputi, Tiara; Morris, Matthew B.; De Castilla, Clariza Ruiz; Stephens,

• ISBN13: 9780739165287
• ISBN10: 0739165283
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-12
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

Understanding style as the intersection of communication, culture, commodification, and aesthetics, The Politics of Style and the Style of Politics focuses on the numerous connections between style and politics. In the first section of the book, the contributors reflect on style in the rhetoric of politics. In today's political arena, commentaries on the styles of political candidates seem to outpace serious discussions of policy and credentials: For example, politicians and commentators alike parse Barack Obama's ability to manipulate stylistic dimensions of race, class, and national origin. Elsewhere, many critics debate about whether a ôfeminine styleö can ever carry a national election. The book's second section focuses on style in the politics of culture. These chapters consider politics in the sense of everyday struggles over power, as exemplified in situations such as France's political battles regarding whether Islamic women may wear head coverings. Overall, The Politics of Style and the Style of Politics makes a powerful argument for the strong connection between style and politics in all of its forms. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Barry Brummett is Charles Sapp Centennial Professor in Communication and Department of Communication Studies Chair at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

Preface: The Problems and Promises of Rhetorical Style	p. xi
Introduction: Politics and the Rhetoric of Style	p. xxvii
Style in the Rhetoric of Politics
Preserving America: The Tea Party Movement and the Cultivation of Revolutionary Conservatism	p. 3
Stylizing Sotomayor: Style as Rhetoric of Caricatures	p. 17
Political Style for the People: Nonviolence as Political Power	p. 33
The Narcissistic Style of American Politics: The Rhetorical Appeal of Sarah Palin	p. 47
Experiential Political Style: Oprah Winfrey's Identification with the Electorate	p. 59
Read Her Pins: Analyzing Madeleine Albright's Brooches as a Means of Procuring Space for Women in Politics through Image and Aesthetics	p. 71
The Decider and the Debater: George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Two Very Different Democratic Styles	p. 87
Style in the Politics of Culture
The Rhetoric of Style for a New Millennium: Project Runway's Tim Gunn as Apocalyptic Prophet	p. 105
The Roots of Style: Hair, Cultural Politics, and Epideictic Rhetoric	p. 119
On Drawing Knives and Experience: The Rise of the Ekphrastic Text in Bravo's Top Chef	p. 139
Style as Othering: Authenticity, Class, and Identity in Meet the Natives: U.S.A.	p. 155
The First Amendment and Rhetorical Style: The Politics of School Dress Codes	p. 173
Sinister Surfaces and the Style of Simulacra in the Modern Stylized Horror Film	p. 191
Ce n'est pas une pipe. C'est rhétorique	p. 205
Eccentri(cities): The Rhetoric of Style Through the Lens of the Weird	p. 221
Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: Commemoration, Camp, and Countering the Traumatic	p. 237
A Politics of Affectation, Or, How to Out-dead the Undead	p. 251
Quaffable, but Uh … Far from Transcendent: Wine, Rhetorical Style and Politics	p. 263
Index	p. 279
About the Contributors	p. 285
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