Video chat: Robin Reames on the importance of rhetoric

Episode 5 of “Meet the Greco-Romans”

Welcome to the fifth of an occasional series of video chats with authors and translators who have written about the philosophy, culture, and history of the Greco-Roman tradition.

In this episode I talk to Robin Reames, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She works in the history of ideas, particularly the ideas that compose the field of rhetorical theory. Her research is guided by an interest in the visceral and primordial power of human speech, for which ancient rhetoric serves as a first theory.

Robin has just authored The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times. I was asked by the publisher, Basic Books, to blurb it, and so I dove into it, relishing the opportunity to learn something about the unjustly undervalued field of logical persuasion. I was not disappointed, so I called up Robin and we chatted about what rhetoric is, why it is important, and how it can help us in these times of increased ideological polarization.

Here is our video conversation: