"Drawing on the works of such diverse thinkers as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Cicero, Quintilian, and Lucian, Erik Gunderson offers a new analysis of the rhetorical theories of performance from the Roman republic and empire, focusing on the rhetorical handbooks of the period and exploring the techniques of reading and training the body as they intersect with current discourse on the body.".

"Employing a range of contemporary theoretical approaches, the book examines the status of rhetorical theory qua theory; the production of a specific version of body in the course of its theoretical description; oratory as a form of self-mastery; the actor as the orator's despised double; the dangers of homoerotic pleasure; and an account of Cicero's De Oratore as an example of what good theory and practice should look like."--BOOK JACKET.