RARE

Overview

Created in 1999, RARE is the only research centre in France devoted exclusively to rhetoric, from antiquity to the dawn of the modern period. The unit represents a field of study that had previously been a terra incognita: rhetorical commentaries in neo-Latin and the vernacular, from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries. Focusing on their precision as well as their strangeness, which is often quite unsettling, RARE critically examines all theoretical terms and is profoundly changing previously held views of ancient rhetoric.

Throughout its long history, rhetoric has always been a theory and a technique, just as it has always combined the art of speaking and the art of reading.

Since rhetoric lessons were intended to examine oratory works—providing models for students to imitate and therefore produce their own speeches—the unit aims to revitalise our current practices for describing textuality, using the tools and protocols developed through this art of reading. Not only do we explore the archaeology of a discipline: we also seek to modernise it.

Research projects