The Responsibilities of Rhetoric combines reflections on today's globalized world with responsive glances toward the rhetoric of the future. A product of the 2008 conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, thirty-one contributors ask, if rhetors are responsible and responsive to their publics, if rhetoricians instruct and empower those who learn from them, what are the responsibilities of rhetoric in our time? Their discussions implicate the promotion of public reason in society, the ability to unite publics and communities, the commitment to provide visions of the possible, and the responsibility to prepare students to think and deliberate in contemporary society.