Rhetoric of Science and Technology

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View the Books in the Series

This series was discontinued in 2020 after the death of series editor Alan Gross.

THE RHETORIC OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY is a branch of rhetorical criticism that has grown rapidly since its inception four decades ago. Its initial focus was the texts of such well-known scientists as Darwin, Newton, and Watson and Crick. The field has since expanded to encompass important work on interdisciplinarity, the role of rhetorical schemes,  the popular meanings of the gene, the rhetorical history of the scientific article, the question of incommensurability, and the critical engagement with emergent technologies.

But this work and these topics by no means exhaust the field. Although the point has already been made that science and technology are in some sense rhetorical, the field remains open to new topics and innovative approaches. The Rhetoric of Science and Technology series of Parlor Press published works that addressed these and related topics:

  • The history of science and technology approached from a rhetorical perspective
  • Science and technology policy from a rhetorical point of view
  • The role of photographs, graphs, diagrams, and equations in the communication of science and technology
  • The  role of schemes and tropes in the communication of science and technology
  • The methods used in rhetorical studies of science and technology, especially the predominance of case studies
  • The popularization of science by scientists and nonscientists
  • The effect of the Internet on communication in science and technology
  • The pedagogy of communicating science and technology to popular audiences and audiences of scientists and engineers
  • The inclusion of science and technology in rhetoric and composition courses

Books in the Series

Visions of Technological Transcendence: Human Enhancement and the Rhetoric of the Future by James A. Herrick (2017)

Evolution by the Numbers: The Origins of Mathematical Argument in Biology by James Wynn (2012)

Communicating Science: The Scientific Article from the 17th Century to the Present by Alan G. Gross, Joseph E. Harmon, and Michael S. Reidy (2009)