Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric

Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric is an authoritative reference work designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the theory of invitational rhetoric, developed twenty-five years ago by Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin. This theory challenges the conventional conception of rhetoric as persuasion and defines rhetoric as an invitation to understanding as a means to create a relationship rooted in equality, immanent value, and self-determination. Rather than celebrating argumentation, division, and winning, invitational rhetoric encourages rhetors to listen across differences, to engage in dialogue, and to try to understand positions different from their own.
Organized into the three categories of foundations, extensions, and applications, Inviting Understanding is a compilation of published articles and new essays that explore and expand the theory. The book provides readers with access to a wide range of resources about this revolutionary theory in areas such as community organizing, social justice activism, social media, film, graffiti, institutional and team decision-making, communication and composition pedagogy, and interview protocols.

Sonja K. Foss is professor emerit in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research and teaching interests are in contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, feminist perspectives on communication, the incorporation of marginalized voices into rhetorical
theory and practice, and visual rhetoric. She is the author or coauthor of the books Gender Stories, Rhetorical Criticism, Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World, Feminist Rhetorical Theories, Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric, and Feminism in Practice. Foss earned her PhD in communication studies from Northwestern University and previously taught at Ohio State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Denver, Virginia Tech, and Norfolk State University.


Together, Sonja K. Foss and William Waters offer writing retreats and present workshops on topics such as completing dissertations, publishing, and advising, and they coach individual scholars working on dissertations, articles, and books.