Visiting Scholar Tito C. Cunha

	IES Visiting Scholar Tito C. Cunha

In the Communication Sciences Department of the New University of Lisbon, where I currently teach, I have offered several courses on Rhetoric. My interest in Rhetoric arose during the time when I was a student at the Free University of Brussels, under the tutalage of Professor Cahim Perelman, author of a famous book entitled New Rhetoric.

Until very recently, however, the topic of Rhetoric in Europe(and particularly in Portugal) had disappeared from the theoretic concerns of the Universities and was not being taught.

The same is not true in the United States, where Rhetoric has remained an object of study, teaching, and investigation. Consequently, the resources available on the subject are considerably more extensive and developed in this country. Furthermore, the body of available literature in this country addresses and analyses the theme of Rhetoric to a depth which, until very recently, was unparalleled in Europe.

Having visited the University of California, Berkeley during a brief trip in 2000, it seemed the ideal location to conduct an investigation that, at the time, had the objective of preparing a publication regarding the rhetoric in the discourse of knowledge.

During 2001-2002 I was granted a sabbatical leave by my university, and thus decided to come to Berkeley to conduct my research with the support of the Ministry of Science and of the FLAD. The book is ready and will soon be published in Lisbon.

This semester, Spring 2003, I have returned to Berkeley to conduct research for another project. This time the subject is "The Rhetoric of Silence," which is presently the focus of my attention.

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Tito C. Cunha received his B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Louvain (Belgium) in 1975; and his Ph.D. from the same University in 1987. He taught philosophy at Coimbra University before joining the Communication Sciences Department at the Lisbon New University in 1983.

Professor Cunha currently writes and teaches courses in the areas of Rhetoric, Argumentation theory and Film criticism. He has also worked on, and maintains an active interest in Philosophical Anthropology and Psychoanalysis. He is the author, among others, of:

• Universal Singular. Filosofia e biografia em J.P.Sartre (Universal Singular. Philosophy and Biograpy in J.-P. Sartre). Lisboa, Fim de Século, 1998.
• Antropologia e Filosofia. Ensaios em torno de Lévi-Strauss )Anthropology and Philosophy. Essays about Levi-Strauss). Coimbra, Almedina, 2002.
• Argumentação e Crítica. O caso da crítica cinematográfica )Argumentation and Criticism. The film criticism case). Coimbra, Minerva, 2003.

He has also recently finished A Retórica dos Saberes (The Rhetoric of Knowledge). It will soon be published in Lisbon.

He is currently working on a book entitled "The Rhetoric of Silence in Communication."