A series of posts on the relationship between vocation and rhetoric, focusing on how ethos, logos, pathos, and mythos offer a fresh perspective for creatives, educators, and scholars to conceptualize their professional and personal callings.
Pathos has always been a powerful force in my vocation as an educator and scholar. It serves as a bridge between logic and human experience, allowing us to connect with others on a deeper emotional level. In my view, pathos is not merely an emotional appeal but an essential component of how we discern our callings and live with purpose.
In my own vocation, pathos plays a central role in shaping how I approach teaching, writing, and public speaking. For me, it is not enough to evoke emotion for its own sake; pathos must inspire reflection, empathy, and ultimately, action. In my public speaking class, for example, I begin the semester by asking my students to identify a moment in their lives when they felt deeply connected to a cause or experienced profound empathy for someone else’s struggle. We use these moments to craft speeches that center on personal stories, encouraging students to explore how these experiences have shaped their values and aspirations. Through this process, students begin to see how their own emotional connections can set the stage for these facets of their emerging sense of meaning.
For students, engaging with pathos is a critical step in vocational discernment. Building off the initial questions my students explore in my public speaking class, I encourage them to explore further how being moved by a particular story, issue, or experience might guide their future work. In a recent assignment, students crafted a speech in they addressed a social issue that resonated deeply with them. One student shared a powerful story about how her family’s experiences with food insecurity inspired her to pursue a career in nonprofit advocacy. Another student spoke about witnessing the challenges of mental health stigma within his community, leading him to explore careers in counseling and education. These assignments not only deepen students’ understanding of pathos but also help them articulate how their emotional experiences inform their vocational choices.
Fannie Lou Hamer, American civil rights leader, at the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 1964
I also draw on pathos in my course on African American rhetoric, where we study speeches and texts that have historically engaged audiences’ emotions to advocate for justice. When we analyze Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” or speeches by Fannie Lou Hamer, I ask students to consider how these rhetorical appeals evoke both empathy and urgency. Students reflect on how these figures used pathos to challenge systemic injustice and inspire action, and then we discuss how they might use similar strategies in their own lives and vocations. This exploration helps students understand that pathos is not a form of manipulation but a strategy to forge genuine emotional connections that motivate positive change.
The urgency of pathos in our work is underscored by Maurice Charland’s concept of the third persona, as he outlines in “Constitutive Rhetoric: The Case of the Peuple Québécois.” Charland highlights how rhetoric can construct collective identities while simultaneously marginalizing others excluded from the dominant narrative. This third persona represents the disinherited, the silenced, and the unseen. Recognizing the third persona through pathos challenges us to acknowledge their exclusion and compels us to create spaces where we not only hear their voices, but also value them.
As educators, our own understanding of pathos shapes the ways we teach and connect with our students. I strive to create spaces where students feel safe to share their stories and engage with the experiences of others. In my African American rhetoric class, I also incorporate discussions of Charland’s third persona to help students think critically about who is excluded from dominant narratives and why. We explore how these exclusions are constructed rhetorically and how we might disrupt them through our own work. For example, I ask students to examine how contemporary social movements—like Black Lives Matter—use emotional appeals to draw attention to systemic inequities. We then reflect on how these movements give voice to the third persona, inspiring collective action and challenging the status quo.
I also encourage students to connect with pathos through creative assignments. In one project, my public speaking students created multimedia presentations combining personal narratives, images, and music to tell a story about their vocational journeys. Initially, students were apprehensive about the assignment. A few asked, “What does combining music, images, and my personal narrative have to do with figuring out what I’m supposed to do in the world?” I responded, “The clarity comes by doing, not thinking.” And ultimately, the process positioned students to critically analyze their available options for expression. The results were not only deeply moving, but also profoundly illuminating. By the end of the assignment, students articulated that their head, heart, and hands felt more aligned as a result of the exercise. They saw that their own emotional connections could inspire others and that their vocational paths might intersect with the needs and struggles of those around them.
In this way, pathos is more than an emotional appeal; it is a call to action. It compels us to connect with others, to listen deeply, and to respond with compassion and courage. As educators, we have a unique opportunity to help our students engage with pathos as a means of exploring their own vocations. By fostering emotional connections in the classroom, we guide students to think critically about their values, aspirations, and the impact they want to have on the world.
In my own journey, pathos has been a driving force in shaping my vocation. It pushes me to amplify the voices of those who are often silenced and to create spaces where my students can do the same. Whether through storytelling, reflective exercises, or discussions about current events, I aim to inspire my students to use their emotional insights to make a difference in their communities. Pathos reminds us that vocation is not just about what we do but about why we do it—and who we do it for. It connects us to our humanity and challenges us to live with purpose, empathy, and love.
Readers interested in exploring further the affective dimensions of vocation that resonate with pathos might find John Neafsey’s book A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience useful. In a chapter on “Passion and Compassion: The Heart’s Calling,” he explores the role that love plays in our vocational discernment. “The experience of falling in love,” he writes, “is an expression of our heart’s capacity for deep passion and feeling for someone or something other than ourselves.” For Neafsey, one of the more important vocational questions is, “To whom does my heart belong?” To answer it, he encourages us to identify “those for whom we hurt,” or “Where, or to whom, does our heart seem to be leading us?” More recently, Meghan M. Slining argues not only for developing compassionate pedagogies as teachers, but also for centering compassion within our undergraduate curriculum and our teaching of vocation. “Undergraduate education,” she writes, “is an important opportunity to equip students with an understanding and appreciation of compassion as well as the skills for compassionate caring for self and others.” David S. Cunningham’s Faithful Persuasion: In Aid of a Rhetoric of Christian Theology also provides a thorough account of the relationship between rhetoric and Christian theology, revealing the power of persuasion and rhetorical appeals in understanding the theological foundations of vocation.
Reginald Bell, Jr., is an assistant professor of strategic communication and public relations at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. A third-generation clergyman, he was honored and humbled to deliver a TED Talk at Knox College in March 2024 titled “The Money is in the Hogs.” He first learned about NetVUE after attending seminars on vocation on his campus in 2024. For other posts by Reginald, click here.