Difficult Empathy and Rhetorical Encounters (Routledge Studies in Rhetoric and Communication) - Softcover

Leake, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032324856 ISBN 13: 9781032324852

Publisher: Routledge, 2024

Synopsis

Difficult Empathy takes up the question of empathy as fundamentally a rhetorical concern, focusing on the ways we encounter and understand one another in what we read and write, hear and say. The book centres around the argument that empathy as a rhetorical event occurs not simply in the minds of individuals but as a product of the rhetorical situations, practices, cultures, and values in which we engage. Rather than identifying empathy as a cure-all, or jettisoning the concept altogether, the author acknowledges empathy’s potential as well as its limitations by focusing on what makes empathy a hard and ultimately worthwhile practice. This nuanced and original study will interest scholars working at the intersection of rhetoric and composition with empathy, as well as those studying empathy in fields such as critical and cultural theory, politics, media analysis, social psychology, and the cognitive humanities.

About this title

About the Author

Eric Leake is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Texas State University, where he is Director of the Master’s Program in Rhetoric and Composition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032324856
• ISBN 13: 9781032324852
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 166