Epideictic Derailment: Unreasonable Argumentation in British Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration

Dr John E. Richardson

Queen Mary University London and the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia)

This presentation explores the rhetoric of the national Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) commemoration ceremony, as broadcast on British television. Dr Richardson argues that the televised national ceremonies should be approached as an example of multi-genre epideictic rhetoric, working up meanings through a hybrid combination of genres (speeches, poems, readings), author/animators and modes (speech, music, light, movement and silence) – meanings that have an epideictic function in that they invoke and recreate “norm circles”.

At the heart of the commemorative practices of HMD is an understanding of the Holocaust as a catastrophe and a great affront to Our values; detailing the circumstances and consequences of the Holocaust acts to revivify Our commitment to the values that it so clearly transgressed. However, achieving this normative goal is dependent on a rhetorical accomplishment – on the marshalling of artistic and non-artistic means of persuasion, to demonstrate both the reasonableness of values and the sincerity with which they are held by the speaker. Dr Richardson’s discourse-historical analysis will orient to the ways that poorly selected rhetorical strategies can derail the primary purpose of the epideictic speech: to communicate, and revivify, shared values.

This event is FREE, please register here.