Misunderstandings abound about the nature of rhetoric, one of the biggest being that it is primarily a theory. But as the Roman rhetorician Quintilian clarifies, rhetoric is not a theoretical art but a practical art. We study rhetoric not primarily to acquire a set of knowledge but to perform an action, and this has tremendous pedagogical consequences. This talk will discuss the nature of rhetoric, its content, and especially how to teach it in light of its practical nature. We will also discuss how Chinese teachers might adapt rhetoric to the challenges inherent in a Chinese context. This talk will be presented in Chinese.
Brent Pinkall
A graduate of New Saint Andrews College, Brent has spent more than ten years serving the church in China, first as a church planter and later as a Christian educator with a passion for bringing classical Christian education to China. For the past four years, he has taught rhetoric, among other things, at a Christian liberal arts college there. He is the author of Redeeming the Six Arts: A Classical Christian Approach to Chinese Education and is currently writing a rhetoric textbook about the classical progymnasmata for use in Chinese schools.
