This chapter introduces the edited collection Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life: Ecological Approaches, which draws together work in rhetoric, communication, composition, environmental communication, and environmental studies to advance a rhetorical approach to ecological care. To set the stage for this project, this introduction takes a moment to look back at the recent history of rhetorical studies and environmental communication, tracing the emergence of several complementary but fairly disparate ecological “turns.” The ecological turns identified coincide with a larger turning in recent interdisciplinary work that embraces ecology as distinct from environment. Thus, it first explores this distinctive sense of the ecological via recent “new materialisms.” Next, and for the bulk of the chapter, it traces the emergence of resonant ecological approaches to rhetoric that largely predate discussions of new materialism, including discussions of constitutive rhetorics among communication and environmental communication scholars, ecological models of composition and invention among writing scholars, and practices of in situ methods among rhetorical scholar-practitioners and their objects. As the final section notes, the chapters in Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life intensify those shifts, ultimately cultivating ecological care in three arenas of rhetorical being, those of change, ethics, and justice.

Since the 20th century, the increasing focus on the environment has drawn people's attention to the concept of ecology, bringing about Ecolinguistics, Ecoliterature, Ecosemiotics, etc. However, ecological rhetoric as a subdiscipline needs to be clarified. This essay aims to explore its origin, major strands, and future trend. We find that ecological rhetoric can be traced to Kenneth Burke's thoughts in the 1930s, and that there are four major strands -- ecological composing, in situ rhetoric, transhumanism, and rhetorical ecology, of which in situ rhetoric is the most promising, justified by its philosophical foundation, transdisciplinarity, inclusiveness and operability. Philosophically, "embodiment" of in situ rhetoric originates from the body philosophy of Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Lakoff and Johnson, etc.; the collaboration between rhetoric and other disciplines (anthropology, cultural studies, etc.) displays its transdisciplinarity; inclusiveness is shown in the wide range and diverse forms of research subjects; and its operability is accounted for from the feasible integration of rhetorical categories and ecological fieldwork. These four elaborated features can justify our choice of in situ rhetoric as the potential trend of ecological rhetoric.

Working to extend the realm of rhetoric by incorporating cognitive science, biology, and anthropology, this dissertation argues for a revised definition of rhetoric as the cultivation of human nature. It takes rhetoric to be the means of social, biological, and environmental persuasion by which we cobble together both ourselves as a species and the places we inhabit. What we know as “human nature” continually emerges by virtue of rhetorical cultivation within social, biological, and environmental dramas. As long as theorizers, teachers, and practitioners of rhetoric (in all its disciplinary manifestations) hold “nature” (in all of its social, biological, and environmental complexity) to be stable and/or a priori, as well as distinct and thus cut-off from rhetorical agency, they will continue to reinscribe the weak defense of rhetoric (as described by Richard Lanham) and the Platonism upon which it is predicated. It is for two reasons, the hope of sustainable human practices and the institutional credit needed to promote them, that rhetoric must respond, fully armed, to disciplinary challenges. Lanham’s strong defense of rhetoric, wedded to a model of human physiology espoused by recent cognitive scientists provides just such fully armed arguments. As humans live on the strength of their relationships, so too must the field of rhetoric.

Can words and symbols extinguish a wildfire? Can they revive an endangered population? Can they reverse the effects of climate change or subdue a pandemic? Can they speak beyond the human? What are the reaches and limits of rhetoric and rhetorical appeals in the 21st century, especially in the face of mounting and massive more-than-human environmental phenomena?

Environmental themes and thought have transformed the paths rhetorical criticism travels; nevertheless, environmental matters remain marginalized in most maps of the field. This essay establishes this tension between the growing institutionalization and popularity of environmental criticism and the ongoing undervaluing of these contributions in most accounts of the state of rhetorical criticism. Then, the author illustrates how this work has enabled rich extensions of ongoing conversations about canonical tropes of the field, including: metacritical; close textual analysis; dramatistic criticism; narrative; metaphoric; social movement; genre; mythic; critical rhetoric; and publics. Finally, the author invites readers to consider how environmental matters have contributed to the ways we navigate rhetorical criticism, as well as how this dimension of the field provides vital and diverse paths worth traveling for years to come.

Environmental themes and thought have transformed the paths rhetorical criticism travels; nevertheless, environmental matters remain marginalized in most maps of the field. This essay establishes this tension between the growing institutionalization and popularity of environmental criticism and the ongoing undervaluing of these contributions in most accounts of the state of rhetorical criticism. Then, the author illustrates how this work has enabled rich extensions of ongoing conversations about canonical tropes of the field, including: metacritical; close textual analysis; dramatistic criticism; narrative; metaphoric; social movement; genre; mythic; critical rhetoric; and publics. Finally, the author invites readers to consider how environmental matters have contributed to the ways we navigate rhetorical criticism, as well as how this dimension of the field provides vital and diverse paths worth traveling for years to come.

Abstract: This essay offers a narrative of rhetorical field methods and intertwined climate justice exigencies. We argue the emergence of and resistance toward rhetorical field methods responds to a growing ecological consciousness, reflecting a changing understanding of the relationship between human agency and the planet. Drawing upon fieldwork from our own research and other scholars in the field, we organize our argument in three related themes: culture, interconnection, and voice. Given the expansive objects, people, and practices rhetorical field methods engage, this approach offers one compelling way to listen to and amplify marginalized voices. Overall, this essay explores how rhetorical field methods have provided and might further offer a compelling set of principles and practices for resisting structures of ecological and social precarity for life on Earth.

Increasingly, scientists and funding agencies such as the US National Science Foundation are recognizing the need for better science communication and more effective broader impacts activities. Compelled to make research more relevant to public stakeholders and policy makers, researchers look for ways to gain the necessary skillset to move their science from the field and laboratory into public for ums. We suggest that the ancient discipline of rhetoric provides a useful – and underutilized – path forward. Building from the fundamental connections between ecology and rhetoric and drawing from practical examples at the intersection of these two fields, we demonstrate how rhetoric can inform training in science communication for better academic writing and broader impacts, and can promote interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaborations that support sustainability science. Integrating rhetoric and ecology helps to address complex and pressing sustainability problems through improved understanding, cooperation, and science and policy actions.