“Rhetoric, Sincerity, and the Death Penalty: New Media Technology and the Victim Impact Statement”
Monday, Oct. 22
Noon-1 p.m.
Bundy Reading Room, Avery Hall
Co-sponsored by the English Department and The Foley Institute
Todd Butler, Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department, will be speaking on the intersection of rhetoric, digital technology, and Supreme Court jurisprudence, especially in regards to the increasing use of new media technologies to create victim-impact statements for the penalty phases of capital murder trials. Combining an analysis of a recent Supreme Court decision (Kelly v. California, 2008) with classical rhetorical theory, Butler charts how a “rhetoric of sincerity” governs the use and understanding such video VISs, and how that rhetoric paradoxically limits the influence of new media’s compositional capacities. The result is a reconsideration of how judges, lawyers, and academics can use classical rhetoric to better understand the intersection of emotions and technology in current and future judicial decision-making.