The Found Object(s) Of Rhetoric

Abstract

The following dissertation expands the notion of posthumanism beyond the work in transhumanism, new media studies, animal studies, and material feminism by incorporating speculative realist philosophies into and with the Aristotelian concept of "faculty" or dunamis. Since Aristotle defines rhetoric as a dunamis (or potential to persuade and/or be persuaded), but also uses the term in his Physics and Metaphysics to describe the contingent potentiality found in material objects, I argue for a posthuman rhetoric that recognizes extra-symbolic forms of persuasion. Drawing from the philosophical work of Levi Bryant, Graham Harman, and Ian Bogost coupled with the rhetorical work of Diane Davis, David Metzger, and Thomas Rickert, my dissertation argues that in order for current rhetorical thought to truly be posthuman, it must broaden the classical assumption that the material side of dunamis allows objects to not only move (as per Kenneth Burke's rhetoric), but to possibly act.