The Rhetorical Invention of Man

Reviews / Votes

In this stimulating book, Greg Goodale pursues a campaign against a centuries-old and persistent rhetorical construct, "Man.".... Goodale has tackled a fascinating subject in interesting and productively offbeat ways. * Isis * Goodale demonstrates that the interdisciplinary field of animal studies is a fit and fascinating companion for rhetorical studies.... Grammarians, classicists, and historians of rhetoric will find themselves taking a new look at familiar territory when Goodale leads them on a tour of canonical texts, examining translations of pronouns referencing human and nonhuman agents and strategic uses of passive voice. Historians and philosophers of science will be drawn to his history of science as an epistemology shaped by the logic of distinctions, and animal studies scholars from the humanities will appreciate his careful and convincing deconstruction of anthropocentric reasoning about Man's place in the natural order. Potentially the book's most valuable contribution, however, is to environmental ethics.... Because its argument so clearly illuminates the limitations and distortions of human rationality that have brought us to the so-called Anthropocene, this book is relevant to readers far beyond rhetorical studies. * Rhetoric & Public Affairs * Greg Goodale's new book contributes to a growing interest in distinctions and identities between the human and the animal in communication theory. He addresses questions of what it is to communicate and to be human in interesting and forward-thinking ways. This volume should appeal to a wide variety of scholars in communication and rhetorical studies. -- Barry Brummett, University of Texas-Austin In this pathbreaking book, Greg Goodale takes us on a fascinating tour of the many ways in which humans, since the "Age of Reason" have attempted to distinguish ourselves from nature, and in particular from other animals. Digging through medieval archives in search of a different way of understanding the world, Goodale discovers that the concept of "Man" is an invention that has only existed for a few centuries and is likely to soon be replaced by a more enlightened way of understanding the world. -- Aysha Akhtar, author of Animals and Public Health: Why Treating Animals Better is Critical to Human Welfare