2025 Workshop Talk | | Rhetoric & Composition
Summary
Few aspects of rhetoric are more neglected or misunderstood than invention. If it is taught at all, it tends to take the form of academic “research,” which is tedious and stifling. The medievals offer a better approach—the art of topics. Using Cicero’s Topica as our guide, we will explore how topics help students to canvas a matter quickly and thoroughly while enabling them to devise copious arguments without the need for lengthy research or reflection, thus shifting our focus away from science, reason, and expert knowledge toward prudence, ingenuity, and common sense.
Speaker
Brent Pinkall is a Junior Fellow of Rhetoric at New Saint Andrews College. He has taught rhetoric for nearly a decade and serves as a judge for the ACCS Chrysostom Oratory Competition. He has spent many years ministering in China, training Chinese classical Christian educators, and helping to establish a classical Christian college there. He is the author of Redeeming the Six Arts: A Christian Approach to Chinese Classical Education (Roman Roads), and he is currently writing a series of textbooks on classical rhetoric.
Additional Materials
The Association of Classical & Christian Schools presents Repairing the Ruins, the ACCS annual conference, copyright ACCS. You may make additional copies of this recording for use by your school but please do not sell any copies of the recording, or post it on the internet.
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