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Papers by Steven Mailloux

Despite all his efforts, Kirk's scorn broke through, "And you consider yourself Plato's disciples... more Despite all his efforts, Kirk's scorn broke through, "And you consider yourself Plato's disciples!" The comment amused Parmen. "We've managed to live in peace and harmony for centuries, Captain." Spock's voice was icy. "Whose harmony? Yours? Plato wanted beauty, truth and, above all, justice." "Plato's Stepchildren," Star Trek "That's rhetorical nonsense." Zefram Cochrane on the legendary story about his invention of warp drive, Star Trek: First Contact

Text and Performance Quarterly, 1991

Responding to the Sacred: An Inquiry into the Limits of Rhetoric, 2021

The Rebirth of American Literary Theory and Criticism: Scholars Discuss Intellectual Origins and Turning Points, 2021

And you could kind of-in my memory anyway-see Said gather himself because here's the opponent and... more And you could kind of-in my memory anyway-see Said gather himself because here's the opponent and now he's going to respond. And de Man then asked a question about what counted as radical within theory, and Said answered, but then de Man replied, and then Said responded, and this went back and forth for like 15 minutes. I still have my notes. And it was just extraordinary, as these two approaches, battling for the soul of the future of the theoretical humanities, were being performed in front of us.

for inviting me to participate in this wonderful workshop. It is a particular honor to share the ... more for inviting me to participate in this wonderful workshop. It is a particular honor to share the podium with Steve Mailloux again. He has done much to bring law and rhetoric back into close conversation ever since his path breaking book with Sandy Levinson. And I look forward to participating in the workshop with long-time friends and collaborators, particularly my former colleagues at UNLV.

Philosophy Rhetoric, 2020

a bstr ac t Critical theory is motivated by exigencies internal and external to academic discipli... more a bstr ac t Critical theory is motivated by exigencies internal and external to academic disciplines. This essay discusses some of these motivations, in particular the need to address extreme divisions and polarized conflicts within the wider culture, especially in the domains of politics and religion. Theory can articulate the conditions of possibility for dialogue across radical difference. Such rhetorical theorizing is illustrated in the work of Jacques Derrida and Gaston Fessard, both concerned with political theology. In these two figures, with their different relations to religion and ontotheology, we see notable ways that critical theory emerged out of secular late modernity and its others. That emergence includes a break with earlier forms of philosophical reflection on how communication is accomplished across cultural differences and how the boundary between the secular and the religious is traversed, but the particular content of this transformation also demonstrates a political-theological continuity.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory, 2018

American Literary History, 2006

Justice Scalia: Rhetoric and the Rule of Law, 2019

Literature of the Americas, 2020

Kenneth Burke's logology is a way of thinking about how to understand the use of language-what he... more Kenneth Burke's logology is a way of thinking about how to understand the use of language-what he calls "symbolic action"-and how to use language to make sense of various human practices, including interpretive acts. This is a dialectic in thought between rhetoric as language-use and interpretation as making-sense. In The Rhetoric of Religion Burke's theotropic logology uses theology to interpret symbolic action and symbolic action to interpret theology. Burke extends to other interpretive projects this same rhetorical-hermeneutic strategy of analogically translating words from one domain into another, from one meaning into another. This strategy is one way Burke thinks with other authors and their texts. The present essay uses some of Burke's published and unpublished work to show how he thinks with the Christian Existentialism of Nicholas Berdyaev and Fyodor Dostoevsky, especially on the topic of freedom. In his thinking with Berdyaev, Burke agrees with the Russian theo-philosopher about the importance of freedom. Indeed, the act of freedom, dramatized in Dostoevsky and described by Berdyaev, forms the very center of Burke's theory of symbolic action, his Dramatism and ultimately his Logology. Freedom is the condition of possibility for human action as opposed to mere motion, and free will is the necessary product of the cycle of terms implicit in the idea of hierarchical order presented in Burke's The Rhetoric of Religion. http://litda.ru/images/americana/Steven_Mailloux.pdf

Encounters between Jesuits and Protestants in Asia and the America, 2018

The Americas 9 Introduction: Jesuit Liminal Space in Liberal Protestant Modernity 179 Jorge Cañiz... more The Americas 9 Introduction: Jesuit Liminal Space in Liberal Protestant Modernity 179 Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra José de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit-Protestant Author: Print Culture, Contingency, and Deliberate Silence in the Making of the Canon 185 Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra 11 Negotiating the Confessional Divide in Dutch Brazil and the Republic: The Case of Manoel de Morães 228 Anne B. McGinness 12 A French Jesuit Parish, without the Jesuits: Grand Bay's Catholic Community and Institutional Durability in British Dominica 253 Steve Lenik 13 "Tis nothing but French Poison, all of it": Jesuit and Calvinist Missions on the New World Frontier 275 Catherine Ballériaux "Americans, you are marked for their prey!" Jesuits and the Nineteenth-Century Nativist Impulse 302

Philosophy & Rhetoric, 2014

This article explores some rhetorical paths of thinking about prayer in relation to traditional h... more This article explores some rhetorical paths of thinking about prayer in relation to traditional humanism and its alternatives. It seeks to develop a Heideggerian rhetorical hermeneutics in relation to a nonpersonal, extrahuman model of communication between the human and the divine. Eventually, the article pivots away from God as the addressee of prayerful rhetoric and focuses instead on angels as the name for the finite, contingent conditions in which the rhetoric of prayer takes place. K e y wor ds: rhetorical hermeneutics, humanism, prayer, person, angels, Heidegger, extrahuman Every act of communication assumes a hermeneutic and a rhetoric, an implicit theory for interpreting public contexts of rhetor, discourse, and audience as well as a communicative practice that produces private/public effects through an audience responding to a rhetor's call. 1 The dominant model for such rhetorical hermeneutics represents an interpersonal communication between living human agents. In what follows, I explore an alternative to this model, one that embodies extrahuman, nonpersonal communication between the human and the divine. Humanist controversies of the last century provide a convenient starting place for this exploration. Various humanisms, antihumanisms, and posthumanisms assume some version of humanist rhetoric, either as an instrument to promote, a position to oppose, or a formation to transcend. How might we describe this humanist rhetoric? At a minimum, we can

Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2006

ABSTRACT

Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2002

ABSTRACT

Despite all his efforts, Kirk's scorn broke through, "And you consider yourself Plato's disciples... more Despite all his efforts, Kirk's scorn broke through, "And you consider yourself Plato's disciples!" The comment amused Parmen. "We've managed to live in peace and harmony for centuries, Captain." Spock's voice was icy. "Whose harmony? Yours? Plato wanted beauty, truth and, above all, justice." "Plato's Stepchildren," Star Trek "That's rhetorical nonsense." Zefram Cochrane on the legendary story about his invention of warp drive, Star Trek: First Contact

Text and Performance Quarterly, 1991

Responding to the Sacred: An Inquiry into the Limits of Rhetoric, 2021

The Rebirth of American Literary Theory and Criticism: Scholars Discuss Intellectual Origins and Turning Points, 2021

And you could kind of-in my memory anyway-see Said gather himself because here's the opponent and... more And you could kind of-in my memory anyway-see Said gather himself because here's the opponent and now he's going to respond. And de Man then asked a question about what counted as radical within theory, and Said answered, but then de Man replied, and then Said responded, and this went back and forth for like 15 minutes. I still have my notes. And it was just extraordinary, as these two approaches, battling for the soul of the future of the theoretical humanities, were being performed in front of us.

for inviting me to participate in this wonderful workshop. It is a particular honor to share the ... more for inviting me to participate in this wonderful workshop. It is a particular honor to share the podium with Steve Mailloux again. He has done much to bring law and rhetoric back into close conversation ever since his path breaking book with Sandy Levinson. And I look forward to participating in the workshop with long-time friends and collaborators, particularly my former colleagues at UNLV.

Philosophy Rhetoric, 2020

a bstr ac t Critical theory is motivated by exigencies internal and external to academic discipli... more a bstr ac t Critical theory is motivated by exigencies internal and external to academic disciplines. This essay discusses some of these motivations, in particular the need to address extreme divisions and polarized conflicts within the wider culture, especially in the domains of politics and religion. Theory can articulate the conditions of possibility for dialogue across radical difference. Such rhetorical theorizing is illustrated in the work of Jacques Derrida and Gaston Fessard, both concerned with political theology. In these two figures, with their different relations to religion and ontotheology, we see notable ways that critical theory emerged out of secular late modernity and its others. That emergence includes a break with earlier forms of philosophical reflection on how communication is accomplished across cultural differences and how the boundary between the secular and the religious is traversed, but the particular content of this transformation also demonstrates a political-theological continuity.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory, 2018

American Literary History, 2006

Justice Scalia: Rhetoric and the Rule of Law, 2019

Literature of the Americas, 2020

Kenneth Burke's logology is a way of thinking about how to understand the use of language-what he... more Kenneth Burke's logology is a way of thinking about how to understand the use of language-what he calls "symbolic action"-and how to use language to make sense of various human practices, including interpretive acts. This is a dialectic in thought between rhetoric as language-use and interpretation as making-sense. In The Rhetoric of Religion Burke's theotropic logology uses theology to interpret symbolic action and symbolic action to interpret theology. Burke extends to other interpretive projects this same rhetorical-hermeneutic strategy of analogically translating words from one domain into another, from one meaning into another. This strategy is one way Burke thinks with other authors and their texts. The present essay uses some of Burke's published and unpublished work to show how he thinks with the Christian Existentialism of Nicholas Berdyaev and Fyodor Dostoevsky, especially on the topic of freedom. In his thinking with Berdyaev, Burke agrees with the Russian theo-philosopher about the importance of freedom. Indeed, the act of freedom, dramatized in Dostoevsky and described by Berdyaev, forms the very center of Burke's theory of symbolic action, his Dramatism and ultimately his Logology. Freedom is the condition of possibility for human action as opposed to mere motion, and free will is the necessary product of the cycle of terms implicit in the idea of hierarchical order presented in Burke's The Rhetoric of Religion. http://litda.ru/images/americana/Steven_Mailloux.pdf

Encounters between Jesuits and Protestants in Asia and the America, 2018

The Americas 9 Introduction: Jesuit Liminal Space in Liberal Protestant Modernity 179 Jorge Cañiz... more The Americas 9 Introduction: Jesuit Liminal Space in Liberal Protestant Modernity 179 Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra José de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit-Protestant Author: Print Culture, Contingency, and Deliberate Silence in the Making of the Canon 185 Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra 11 Negotiating the Confessional Divide in Dutch Brazil and the Republic: The Case of Manoel de Morães 228 Anne B. McGinness 12 A French Jesuit Parish, without the Jesuits: Grand Bay's Catholic Community and Institutional Durability in British Dominica 253 Steve Lenik 13 "Tis nothing but French Poison, all of it": Jesuit and Calvinist Missions on the New World Frontier 275 Catherine Ballériaux "Americans, you are marked for their prey!" Jesuits and the Nineteenth-Century Nativist Impulse 302

Philosophy & Rhetoric, 2014

This article explores some rhetorical paths of thinking about prayer in relation to traditional h... more This article explores some rhetorical paths of thinking about prayer in relation to traditional humanism and its alternatives. It seeks to develop a Heideggerian rhetorical hermeneutics in relation to a nonpersonal, extrahuman model of communication between the human and the divine. Eventually, the article pivots away from God as the addressee of prayerful rhetoric and focuses instead on angels as the name for the finite, contingent conditions in which the rhetoric of prayer takes place. K e y wor ds: rhetorical hermeneutics, humanism, prayer, person, angels, Heidegger, extrahuman Every act of communication assumes a hermeneutic and a rhetoric, an implicit theory for interpreting public contexts of rhetor, discourse, and audience as well as a communicative practice that produces private/public effects through an audience responding to a rhetor's call. 1 The dominant model for such rhetorical hermeneutics represents an interpersonal communication between living human agents. In what follows, I explore an alternative to this model, one that embodies extrahuman, nonpersonal communication between the human and the divine. Humanist controversies of the last century provide a convenient starting place for this exploration. Various humanisms, antihumanisms, and posthumanisms assume some version of humanist rhetoric, either as an instrument to promote, a position to oppose, or a formation to transcend. How might we describe this humanist rhetoric? At a minimum, we can

Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2006

ABSTRACT

Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2002

ABSTRACT

An academic directory and search engine.

American Literary History Online Review, 2017

http://academic.oup.com/alh/pages/alh\_review\_series\_13

Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu , 2023

Gaston Fessard places freedom at the center of his philosophical commentary on the Spiritual Exer... more Gaston Fessard places freedom at the center of his philosophical commentary on the Spiritual Exercises. Originally published in French in 1956, Fessard's book carefully describes Ignatius's "lived dialectic," the way that the Exercises unfold in time and space leading to a vocational choice, the retreatant's Election. But Fessard also argues that the stages through which the retreatant moves during the four weeks apply to our individual free acts in general. Ignatius developed the Spiritual Exercises while resolving for himself the