Freedom of Speech and the Function of Rhetoric in the United States - by Michael Donnelly (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book takes a critical view of the relationship between public discourse and culturally specific definitions of free speech to illuminate the ways in which cultural framing diminishes the complexity of free speech and sublimates a range of value-choices.

Book Synopsis

This book takes a critical view of the relationship between public discourse and culturally specific definitions of free speech to illuminate the ways in which cultural framing diminishes the complexity of free speech and sublimates a range of value-choices.

Review Quotes

Michael Donnelly's important study takes a critical look at the issue of "free speech" and the uses to which free speech arguments are put in U.S. political discourse. Exposing what he terms "a collection of false narratives" at the root of liberal theories of free speech, Donnelly's findings run against the grain of conventional approaches to the subject, some of which are either implicitly or overtly at work in composition classes across the country. With refreshing clarity, Donnelly argues that free speech was not fundamental to the founding of democracy in the U.S. and that the support of the unfettered expression of opinion in a "marketplace of ideas" is harmful rather than helpful to deliberative democracy.

About the Author

Michael D. Donnelly is associate professor of English at Ball State University.