This volume charts new methodological territories for rhetorical studies and the emerging field of the rhetoric of health and medicine. In offering an expanded, behind-the-scenes view of rhetorical methodologies, it advances the larger goal of differentiating the rhetoric of health and medicine as a distinct but pragmatically diverse area of study, while providing rhetoricians and allied scholars new ways to approach and explain their research.

Collectively, the volume’s 16 chapters:

• Develop, through extended examples of research, creative theories and methodologies for studying and engaging medicine’s high-stakes practices.
• Provide thick descriptions of and heuristics for methodological invention and adaptation that meet the needs of needs of new and established researchers.
• Discuss approaches to researching health and medical rhetorics across a range of contexts (e.g., historical, transnational, socio-cultural, institutional) and about a range of ethical issues (e.g., agency, social justice, responsiveness).