Place in the Liberal Arts: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to Text and Topos

This book explains the enduring significance of topos, an Aristotelian translation of the concept of place, by exploring how place shapes the kinds of arguments we make, texts we produce, the arts and technology we use.

In tracing the intellectual lineage of topos from classical rhetorical theory to contemporary digital discourse, the chapters demonstrate the ongoing relevance of place to the formation of thought, identity, arts, and arguments in the modern world. It offers both a foundational academic text for civics education and a call to reclaim topos as a critical tool for reasoning in an age oversaturated with online messages and fragmented discourse.

This work takes a unique, artful, and interdisciplinary approach, linking classical philosophical and rhetorical frameworks to contemporary educational and cultural challenges. It will appeal to a broad set of diverse academic audiences across the humanities and social sciences, including rhetoric, philosophy, history, literature, and religious studies, place studies, legal studies, and public intellectuals interested in discourse and argumentation.

Randall Fowler is Assistant Professor of Political Rhetoric and Director of Undergraduate Research at Abilene Christian University, USA. The author of four previous books, his scholarly interests include presidential rhetoric, the rhetoric of religion, the Cold War, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

J. Scott Lee is the co-founder of the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC), a worldwide professional, liberal arts, and higher education society of colleges and universities. He was the Executive Director of ACTC for 24 years. Based on original data collection and ethnographic research in higher education, he advised diverse general and liberal education programs in over 75 institutions on four continents. Since retiring from ACTC, he has published a book on liberal arts education’s history and rejuvenation, book chapters on invention and rhetoric in the liberal arts in collected volumes, and book reviews on invention and the evolution of semiotics in humans and other species.