A Revolution in Tropes: Alloiostrophic Rhetoric.

Lanham, Lexington Books, 2015.
ISBN-13: 978-0739195062
ISBN-10: 0739195069

A Revolution in Tropes is a groundbreaking study of rhetoric and tropes. Theorizing new ways of seeing rhetoric and its relationship with democratic deliberation, Jane Sutton and Mari Lee Mifsud explore and display alloiōsis as a trope of difference, exception, and radical otherness. Their argument centers on Aristotle’s theory of rhetoric through particular tropes of similarity that sustained a vision of civic discourse but at the same time underutilized tropes of difference. When this vision is revolutionized, democratic deliberation can perform and advance its ends of equality, justice, and freedom.

Marie-Odile N. Hobeika and Michele Kennerly join Sutton and Mifsud in pushing the limits of rhetoric by engaging rhetoric alloiostrophically. Their collective efforts work to display the possibilities of what rhetoric can be. A Revolution in Tropes will appeal to scholars of rhetoric, philosophy, and communication

“Alloiostrophic Rhetoric is indeed a tropic revolution for rhetorical studies. Sutton and Mifsud provoke the discipline to turn toward difference, to enact a rhetorical choreography that moves in concert with the alien, that embraces radical diversity, and that invites a space for otherness. Returning rhetoric to its tropological force, Sutton and Mifsud make rhetoric rhetorical.”

— Michelle Ballif, University of Georgia

“An original and thought-provoking approach to rhetoric.”

— Maurice Charland, Concordia University

“The concept of the trope is easy to summon forth but hard to understand. Jane Sutton and Mari Lee Mifsud have put forward an engaging and inventive examination of this intriguing rhetorical concept. Uniting similarity and enforcing difference, A Revolution in Tropes: Alloiostrophic Rhetoric productively adds to our understanding of what we do when we use language.”

— Scott R. Stroud, University of Texas at Austin

“An original advance in the study of rhetorical theory. Highly Recommended.”

— CHOICE