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Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World A Critical Sourcebook Edited by Carolyn Handa 2004 504 pages Complementary Texts Rudolf Arnheim Charles Kostelnick and David Roberts Edward Tufte Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen Karen Schriver Mark Johnson Donis A. Dondis Keywords Theory Visual Design Education and Literacy  Copyright © 2005-2007 Isabel Pedersen

This collection is an interesting survey of visual rhetoric in the context of Composition Studies. However, it reaches into other disciplines like design, sociology, and education. It reproduces classic papers by Roland Barthes and Rudolph Arnheim. But, it also includes papers by contemporary scholars like Gunther Kress, Jay Lemke, Richard Buchanan, Richard Lanham, and bell hooks. Most papers were previously published. One lingering theme throughout many papers is the changing role of rhetoric in light of new and emergent media. Richard Buchanan argues that we need to conceive of design as “a humanistic enterprise, [by] recognizing the inherently rhetorical dimension of all design thinking” (24). However, Michele Shauf argues quite differently: the most vital role of humanities in our technological age is to maintain a skeptical eye and a cautious attitude toward the early adoption of technologies simply because they “go beyond”. Our goal is to foster not technical invention but rhetorical invention. (367) Overall the collection is an appealing survey of visual rhetoric and its allied fields