The Rhetorical Emergence of Culture

This is the fourth in a series of volumes resulting out of conferences organized in conjunction with the International Rhetoric Culture Project, which states in its theoretical outline that "just as rhetoric is founded in culture, culture is founded in rhetoric." The volume, edited by Meyer (qualitative research methods and social anthropology, U. of Bielefeld, Germany) and Girke (Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Martin Luther U.-Wittenberg, Germany) attends to the second half of that proposition, building upon and seeking to expand beyond the dialogic concept of culture promoted in the 1995 edited volume The Dialogic Emergence of Culture through rhetoric's acknowledgment of the material dimension of living bodies and its emphasis on contingency and emergence (and a correspondingly limited power of intention). Fifteen papers are presented in sections thematically linked to intersubjectivity, emergence, and agency. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Christian Meyer is Assistant Professor of Qualitative Research Methods and Social Anthropology at the Faculty for Sociology of the University of Bielefeld. A founding member of the International Rhetoric Culture Project, he has done research and published on comparative rhetoric, ethnographic methodology, Afro-Brazilian ritual practice, and everyday interaction in Senegal. Currently, he is engaged in research about political communication in Senegal and Bangladesh, about the communicative combat and coverage of disasters, and about communication under anti-communicative conditions in professional sports.

Felix Girke is Post-Doctoral Researcher and Research Coordinator of the Center for Interdisciplinary Area Studies (ZIRS) at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He completed his PhD on the rhetorical emergence of interethnic relations in South Omo (Ethiopia) in 2009, and has published on cultural contact, exchange relations, predicaments of decision-making, and war and peace in southwestern Ethiopia. His upcoming research focuses on the moralisation of tourism in Myanmar/Burma, and he is preparing a research project on cultural heritage and sacred mountains.