Description
Book SynopsisThis 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.
Trade ReviewMichael 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. -- Susan C. Jarratt, University of California, Irvine
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Function of Rhetoric at the Present Time Chapter 1: Freedom of Speech in the United States Chapter 2: Publicness and Models of the Public Sphere Chapter 3: Parrhesia and/in the Democratic State Chapter 4: Freedom of Speech in the Twentieth Century Chapter 5: Free Speech and Hate Speech in the Age of the Internet Conclusion
