Searching for Latini

In SEARCHING FOR LATINI, Michael Kleine recounts the quest of a rhetorician and writing teacher to discover and celebrate the significance of a thirteenth-century rhetorician who has been excluded from American versions of rhetorical history-Brunetto Latini, the teacher of Dante. Kleine argues that Latini should be rescued from obscurity, not only because of the literary status of his student but also because of Latini's promotion of Ciceronian rhetoric during the dawn of the Renaissance and the relevance of his work to contemporary teachers of writing. Kleine writes of his pilgrimage reflectively and poignantly. His search reminds us all that, in rescuing others from obscurity, we might even rescue ourselves. MICHAEL KLEINE is a professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where he teaches courses in first-year writing, composition theory, rhetorical theory, language theory, and science writing. His published articles have appeared in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Technical Communication Quarterly, Communication and Religion, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Journal of Medical Humanities, Journal of Teaching Writing, The Writing Instructor, ex tempore (a music- theory journal), Journal of Psychological Type, Centrum, and Composition Forum. He has published book chapters in The Philosophy of Discourse and (Re) Visioning Composition Textbooks. He has also published poetry on Italian art and literature in Poem and The Formalist.