Thirteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The links between civic architecture, sacred space, and rhetorical discourse in the ancient Greek world are relatively well established. It seems clear that both civic and sacred design elements developed in concomitant ways with the advent of democracy and the development of rhetoric as a discipline in the fifth century and beyond (Lewis). In other words, scholars know that key elements of civic life have their roots in a timeless cosmogonic impulse. Through a close reading of the setting and speeches of Plato’s Phaedrus, this paper proposes a theory of the temenos as a foundation for what I call a sacred-civic rhetoric. This paper then applies this theory to a modern rhetorical artifact: the 1988 Gallaudet University protests in the United States. By virtue of their success, these protests have become a touchstone for other protests in which civic spaces are occupied for rhetorical purposes, often to powerful effect. Ultimately, this paper shoes that the sacred-civic power of the temenos has rhetorical traction still today, and often manifests as protest.