Dear ISHR members:
The Rhetorica prize committee is pleased to report that the winner of the 2024 prize for the best article published in Rhetorica is Michael R. Kearney, “Melanchthon's Didactic Genre and the Rhetoric of Reformation,” Rhetorica 40.1 (Winter, 2022): 23–42. The winner was chosen from among the twenty-four articles published in Rhetorica 39.3–41.1.
The prize-winning article combines a strong and original argument with impressive mastery of both primary sources and secondary scholarship, all expressed in a clear and graceful writing style. Taking as his starting point Hans-Georg Gadamer's analysis of the challenge the doctrine of sola scriptura posed for those who sought to ground rhetorical practice in the authoritative texts of Greek and Roman antiquity, Kearney shows how Philip Melanchthon solved the problem by introducing a fourth genre of rhetoric – the “didactic” or “dialectical” variety – that was better suited to the needs of readers than the three classical genres of oral deliberation and persuasion. In its emphasis on “individualized judgment and literary proficiency,” Melanchthon's transformation of classical rhetoric answered the needs of his contemporaries during an age of controversy and chaos in both the theological and political realms. As Kearney points out, although Melanchthon has long been recognized as an important figure in the history of rhetoric during the Renaissance and Reformation period, his writings on rhetoric are only recently being given the attention they deserve. This article is an especially valuable contribution to that scholarship because it provides an exceptionally clear and well-documented account of Melanchthon's rhetoric that foregrounds its most original and its most enduringly relevant component. Rhetorical pedagogy aimed at developing an individual's ability to judge and understand complex and tendentious discourse is as essential in the twenty-first century as it was five-hundred years ago.
Dr. Kearney recently completed a Ph.D. in Rhetoric at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. To him we offer our congratulations!
The Rhetorica Prize Committee
Marie-France Gineste (chair)
Martin Camargo
Johannes Engels
María Amelia Fernández Rodríguez
Amedeo A. Raschieri
Dietmar Till