Rhetorical Refusals: Defying Audiences' Expectations.

• Author: Varda, Scott

Rhetorical Refusals: Defying Audiences' Expectations. By John Schilb. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007; pp. 205. $35.00 paper.

Rhetorical Refusals is an insightful attempt to establish a new genre of rhetorical analysis that simultaneously assists in making American political discourse more inventive. Using a wide variety of case studies, Schilb successfully expands the scope of rhetorical investigation to include what he deems a separate class of rhetorical acts denoting a rhetor's act of speaking or writing "which pointedly refuse to do what the audience considers rhetorically normal" (p. 3). By establishing a new genre of analysis for rhetorical discourse, Schilb provides the field an additional approach by which we might understand the epistemic and ontological nature of our public communication.

Naming this new rhetorical corpus "rhetorical refusals," Schilb cobbles together numerous case studies in an effort to flesh out exactly which rhetorical acts could be considered legitimate members of this newly named class. Framing rhetorical refusals in rather broad terms, Schilb lays the groundwork for future scholarship by analyzing numerous artifacts, including a dance critic's refusal to visually inspect an art piece prior to discussing it, President Clinton's refusal to answer specific questions while providing grand jury testimony, a hip-hop icon's refusal to read the expected words from the teleprompter, and an academic's refusal to debate Holocaust deniers. Schilb's examples all share a common thread: In each example, the rhetor has sought to elevate a value (privacy, preference for better art, duty to expose a wrong, etc.) over the audience's expectation of seeing a rhetorical norm performed.

Schilb's work is divided into two parts. In part one, Schilb offers the audience a broadstroked approach to the analysis and evaluation of rhetorical refusals. In chapter one, Schilb describes the basis of his understanding of rhetorical refusals by treating the audience to a brief discussion of several distinct acts of refusal that he draws from throughout the rest of the text. Continuing with these case studies, Schilb evaluates these acts in chapter two, forwarding his contention that such inquiry may assist in explaining both epistemic and ontological notions of our public discourse, though Schilb's discussion of both concepts is limited. Additionally, chapter two contains his astute observation that no rhetorical refusal...