PROMPT:

Here are some key subfields in rhetorical theory to guide you in choosing a critical theory. You will obviously want to narrow your topic/focus from there. The easiest way to do this is to choose a single text/scene/line that you think will provide something interesting to highlight with your theory. (Example: considering Winnie the Pooh from an animal rhetorics perspective might suggest a new way of reading the book that most people haven’t considered.)

Environmental Rhetoric

Animal Rhetorics

Object-Oriented Ontology (the rhetoric of things)

Ambient Rhetoric

Rhetoric and Evolutionary Theory

Rhetoric and Agency (a la Carolyn Miller)

Environmental Risk Rhetoric

Environmental Health Rhetoric

Rhetorical Analysis of Environmental Writing (under any appropriate paradigm, such as neo-Aristotelian or Marxist rhetoric)

Actor-Network Theory (as it applies to environments and agents; see Bruno Latour)