Kenneth Burke Society Top Papers

Ethical Responsibility? Appeals to Scene, Agency, and Agent as the Denial of Ethical Choice in Bush's Embryonic Stem Cell Addresses

Through combining Burke's cluster and pentad tools to analyze Bush's 2001 embryonic stem cell addresses, it becomes apparent that Bush is denying agent status to the very people who could...

Testing Positive for a Concealable Identity: Rhetorical Identification as an Invitation to Cope

The online forum "HPV", found on the website positivesingles.com (2007), was examined in order to better understand the empowering aspects of this technology. Responses to forum threads...

Alembicating Kenneth Burke's Concept of Recalcitrance

Kenneth Burke's concept of recalcitrance is pivotal in Permanence and Change and The Philosophy of Literary Form. Nevertheless, scholarly interpretations of the term lack coherence...

Refurbishing Psychoanalysis for Rhetorical Analysis: Burke's Dramatistic Transformation of Freudian Terministic Screens

This essay examines Burke's intellectual engagement with Freudian psychoanalysis at both theoretical and methodological levels, with special reference to his understanding of psychoanalysis...