Description:
Rhetorical scholarship has for decades relied solely on culture to explain persuasive behavior. While this focus allows for deep explorations of historical circumstance, it neglects the powerful effects of biology on rhetorical behavior - how our bodies and brains help shape and constrain rhetorical acts. By introducing evolutionary biology into the study of rhetoric, this book serves as a model of a biocultural paradigm. This cross-species study of rhetoric allows us to trace the origins of our own persuasive behaviors, providing us with a deeper history of rhetoric that transcends the written and the televised, and reveals the artifacts of our communicative past.
Review Quotes:
"In this well-researched, cross-species study, Parrish employs a biocultural paradigm when tracing the origins of rhetoric. He reveals the artifacts of humans' communicative past via the lens of animal signaling, uncovering how animals exercise persuasive tactics in order to overcome difficulties that are similar to human problems ... No other book examines rhetoric from this perspective in such a thorough way."
- K L. Majocha, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, in CHOICE
"Parrish's book is important. It brings together a wide range of findings in the sciences and humanities; it endorses a much broader conception of communication that extends beyond animals, akin to ongoing inquiries in biosemiotics; and, most centrally, it expands rhetoric beyond the confines of the human."
- Ryan Hediger, Kent State University at Tuscarawas, in Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment