Featuring sixteen original essays by nationally prominent rhetoricians, critical theorists, and composition specialists, this wide-ranging and often controversial collection brings together the most exhaustive discussion of ethos to date.

More than a reinterpretation of classical texts, many of the essays present alternative histories, thus expanding the cannon and locating competing cultural traditions of ethos and ethical argument. Many combine theory with practice, offering original contributions to composition pedagogy.

No longer the sole province of classical rhetoric, ethos has become a focal point - and a point of intersection - for numerous rhetorical and literary methodologies, including Marxist, feminisist, psychological, and poststructuralist theories. Ethos serves to unite the rhetorician and the literary critic, the teacher and the theorist, in a common concern over the relations between language and human character.