Dr. Alex Parrish Reads from his New Book

Dr. Alex Parrish reads from his new book Adaptive Rhetoric: Evolution, Culture and the Art of Persuasion

On Wednesday, November 11, WRTC was honored to host a reading and reception for Dr. Alex Parrish’s book, Adaptive Rhetoric: Evolution, Culture and the Art of Persuasion.  Alex’s book was published as part of Routledge’s Series in Rhetoric and Communication.  This series is reserved for “cutting edge, scholarly studies” and is characterized by “dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics.”  At this reception, Alex read from his book and shared his biocultural approach to the study of rhetoric, which contends that animal rhetorics may well be the “evolutionary precursors” of human rhetorics.  He then highlighted some of the ideas from his next book project, which will magnify the communicative activities of rhetorical animals and argue against exceptionalist claims that nonhuman animals cannot think, that they do not intend, and that they are incapable of using symbols.

Alex’s work, both in this book and in his current book project, reminds us what we often forget: we are animals too.  Even more, he shows us how our human rhetoric is a part of a much larger system of animal communication.  In so doing, he rejects the fallacy of human exceptionalism (what Friedrich Nietzche might call “that intellect that has no further mission that would lead beyond the human”), and he makes us aware of the “ubiquity of persuasive behavior in nature” where (as he writes) “humans and nonhuman animals, and even some plants, persuade to survive, to live, love and cooperate.”