Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric

Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric is an authoritative reference work designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the theory of invitational rhetoric, developed twenty-five years ago by Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin. This theory challenges the conventional conception of rhetoric as persuasion and defines rhetoric as an invitation to understanding as a means to create a relationship rooted in equality, immanent value, and self-determination. Rather than celebrating argumentation, division, and winning, invitational rhetoric encourages rhetors to listen across differences, to engage in dialogue, and to try to understand positions different from their own. Organized into the three categories of foundations, extensions, and applications, Inviting Understanding is a compilation of published articles and new essays that explore and expand the theory. The book provides readers with access to a wide range of resources about this revolutionary theory in areas such as community organizing, social justice activism, social media, film, graffiti, institutional and team decision-making, communication and composition pedagogy, and interview protocols.

Table of Contents:
Part I. Foundations 1 The Womanization of Rhetoric Sally Miller Gearhart 2 Proposal for a Feminist Rhetoric Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin 3 Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin 4 Beyond Traditional Conceptualizations of Rhetoric: Invitational Rhetoric and a Move toward Civility Jennifer E. Bone, Cindy L. Griffin, and T. M. Linda Scholz 5 The Metatheoretical Foundations of Invitational Rhetoric: Axiological, Epistemological, and Ontological Explorations Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin Part II. Extensions 6 Fusing Horizons: Standpoint Hermeneutics and Invitational Rhetoric Kathleen J. Ryan and Elizabeth J. Natalle 7 Telling the Story, Hearing the Story: Narrative Co-Construction and Crisis Research Karen Taylor, Rita Durant, and David Boje 8 Planting Seeds of Change: Ella Baker’s Radical Rhetoric Marilyn DeLaure Bordwell 9 Rhetorics of Invitation and Refusal in Terry Tempest Williams’s The Open Space of Democracy Jill Swiencicki 10 Invention for the Invitational Rhetor: Allen Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex Sutra” Stephen M. Llano 11 Challenges to the Enactment of Invitational Rhetoric in the Age of Mobile Communication Technologies Sonja K. Foss and Jeanine Warisse Turner Part III. Applications 12 Love as a Strategy for Community and Social Justice Organizing: Invitational Rhetoric in Murfreesboro Loves Roberta Chevrette and Joshua Hendricks 13 Practicing Invitational Rhetoric: East Central Ministries’ Approach to Community Development Sarah De Los Santos Upton 14 Discussions on Kneeling During the National Anthem: An Analysis of High School Football Players Employing Invitational Rhetoric Kristen A. Hungerford 15 An Invitation to Rhetoric: A Generative Dialogue on Performance, Possibility, and Feminist Potentialities in Invitational Rhetoric Bryant Keith Alexander and Michele Hammers 16 Understanding Affectively: Beyond the Hills as Cinematic Invitational Rhetoric Alina Haliliuc 17 Participatory Graffiti as Invitational Rhetoric: The Case of O Machismo Benjamin R. Bates 18 Invitational Rhetoric as a Springboard to Using Dialogue across the Curriculum Patricia Hawk and Rachel Pokora 19 Creating an Invitational Classroom Environment: Lessons Lived and Learned Donna Marie Nudd 20 Disrupting Disruption: Invitational Pedagogy as a Response to Student Resistance A. Abby Knoblauch 21 An Invitation to Reason: The Process of Discovery Essay Kathleen M. Hunzer 22 Considering the Alternative in Composition Pedagogy: Teaching Invitational Rhetoric with Lynda Barry’s What It Is Susan Kirtley Part IV. Expanding the Invitation 23 The Theory of Invitational Rhetoric: Anticipating Future Scholarship Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin 24 Compendium of Publications Related to Invitational Rhetoric Sonja K. Foss, Cindy L. Griffin, and Andrew Gilmore

About the Author :
Sonja K. Foss is professor emeritus in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research and teaching interests are in contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, feminist perspectives on communication, the incorporation of marginalized voices into rhetorical theory, and visual rhetoric. Cindy L. Griffin is professor emeritus in the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. Her research and teaching interests are feminist intersectional approaches to communication, the role of invitational rhetoric in creating spaces for civil discourse during challenging interactions, feminist intersectional theories of rhetoric, and feminist challenges to traditional assumptions about rhetoric and communication.

Review :
Foss (Univ. of Denver) and Griffin (Colorado State Univ.) are the principal developers of the invitational rhetoric paradigm. This publication marks the 25th anniversary of Foss and Griffin's original article on this theory ("Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric," Communication Monographs, 1995), making this extensive showcase of the scope and impact of their work quite fitting. Presented under three headings—"Foundations," "Extensions," "Applications"—essays cover the foundations of invitational rhetoric, offer extensions of the theory, and apply the concepts to a variety of artifacts. In a particularly interesting essay, Alina Haliliuc studies the 2012 Romanian film Beyond the Hills, arguing that the movie functions as an invitational rhetorical "offering" in that it provides a brave perspective about highly controversial issues. Foss and Griffin conclude by provoking inquiry into the growth of the theory by looking at ways in which invitational rhetoric can inform pedagogy, is affected by technology, can enact social change, and can inform research methods. No other books on this theory provide the breadth and expertise this one does. This is a must-have for scholars and an excellent supplemental text for the classroom. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. A remarkable turn in the rhetorical tradition, the theory of invitational rhetoric invites us to reimagine rhetoric as a form of genuine dialogue. Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric is a great resource for anyone wanting to explore this provocative idea. Given the divisive world in which we currently live, any approach to discourse that privileges understanding and accepting the social other is to be commended. This volume adroitly combines previously published scholarship with new material that deepens the theoretical frame for the ‘invitation to understand’ as well as offers a broader array of work that illustrates the possibilities for engaging in discourse. This book is both a comprehensive and expansive examination of previously and newly published works on one of the communication discipline’s most important theoretical contributions. Invitational rhetoric has certainly made its mark in the field, and this volume adds extensively to our understanding of invitational and feminist theories of communication and rhetoric. As an advocate for and practitioner of invitational rhetoric for decades, I am deeply indebted to Foss and Griffin’s work. Now comes this comprehensive new resource, Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric—and it could not appear at a more propitious time, as teachers everywhere are looking for ways to move beyond the fragmentation and division and attack culture we are living through. How lucky are we to research, write, and speak during the time of Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin, whose concept of invitational rhetoric continues to transform the long-established fields of rhetoric, communication, and composition studies. Ever since their landmark 1995 publication on this topic, my students and I have benefited from their brilliant insights; their generative scholarship; and their steady hope for a more equitable, productive rhetorical future. For the past quarter century, Foss and Griffin’s theory of invitational rhetoric has played an instrumental role in fostering dialogue regarding the strengths and limits of the dominant adversarial communication paradigm. As one who shares their commitment to this critical area of inquiry, I welcome publication of Inviting Understanding.