Abstract

Let us count, rather, on disarray. Perhaps “since the beginning of time” is an inauspicious way to begin a composition. And yet, given the project I am undertaking, it does not seem too far off. Let us say this: from the very start of the pedagogical tradition associated with Western rhetoric, which is often represented as having its roots in ancient Greece, the figure of the rhetoric teacher has had a remarkably fraught relationship with cultural and political authority. Just consider the double legacy of Socrates as both—on one hand—the West’s original wise man, a revered and beloved pedagogue, and—on the other—a bothersome wise guy and disruptive corrupter of youth.1 In Aristophanes’ Clouds, which...