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Winner of the 2016 CCCC Advancement of Knowledge Award and the 2016 CCCC Research Impact Award  In Still Life with Rhetoric, Laurie Gries forges connections among new materialism, actor network theory, and rhetoric to explore how images become rhetorically active in a digitally networked, global environment. Rather than study how an already-materialized "visual text" functions within a specific context, Gries investigates how images often circulate and transform across media, genre, and location at viral rates.

Images play an important role in developing consciousness and the relationship of the self to its surroundings. In this distinctive collection, editors Charles A. Hill and Marguerite Helmers examine the connection between visual images and persuasion, or how images act rhetorically upon viewers. Chapters included here highlight the differences and commonalities among a variety of projects identified as "visual rhetoric," leading to a more precise definition of the term and its role in rhetorical studies.

Rhetorical scholarship has found rich source material in the disciplines of advertising, communications research, and consumer behavior. Advertising, considered as a kind of communication, is distinguished by its focus on causing action. Its goal is not simply to communicate ideas, educate, or persuade, but to move a prospect closer to a purchase. The editors of "Go Figure! New Directions in Advertising Rhetoric" have been involved in developing the scholarship of advertising rhetoric for many years.