5th Annual WML Academic Symposium

Time: 2:30-2:50
Room: 303
Presenter: Jessica Carter
Title: Linking Aristotle, Burke, and Fisher in the Rhetoric of Barack Obama: Preliminary Investigations
Developed under the guidance of Dr. Dean Farmer, Communicaton Studies

This is a presentation of a paper that considers President Obama’s rhetoric from the theoretical lenses of Aristotle, Kenneth Burke, and Walter Fisher. I will argue that President Obama uses the classic Aristotelian form, but also the modern strategies of Burke and Fisher such as identification, victimage, and narrative rationality to create his persuasive rhetoric.