Beyond Civility

William Keith is Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is the author of the award-winning Democracy as Discussion: Civic Education and the American Forum Movement and coauthor of two highly regarded textbooks, The Essential Guide to Rhetoric and Public Speaking: Choices and Responsibility.Robert Danisch is Associate Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of two monographs and a popular book on communication practices and the host of the communication skills podcast “Now We’re Talking.”

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Why Civility Matters1. Civility as a Moral Quandary and a Political Necessity2. Imagining the Politics of Civility3. Civility in the Discursive Public Sphere4. The Structure, Uses, and Limitations of Incivility5. Strong Civility for Social JusticeNotesReferencesIndex

“In a much needed and thought-provoking study, William Keith and Robert Danisch examine the concepts of civility and incivility, offering both critique and justification for civility as a norm of political discourse. They reconceive civility as a kind of discourse that can help us solve political problems in a way that is more equal, less conditioned by economic, political, or social power, and more respectful of mutual humanity. This study offers a timely assessment of our broken public sphere.”—Jennifer Mercieca, coeditor of The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency