Rhetoric Society Quarterly Jan 2012

Resisting the Fixity of Suburban Space: The Walker as Rhetorician

Robert J. Topinka

Abstract

This essay examines homogeneous, suburban commercial streets commonly found in the United States. These streets employ minutely regulated systems of order organized under the logic of automobile traffic. In a society where consumerism reigns, these streets and the spatial order they entail contribute significantly to the ideologies of everyday life. Because these streets rely almost entirely on driving, the walker opens a space of difference and rhetorical invention within these homogeneous spaces. Using Roxanne Mountford's notion of rhetorical space, I examine the fixity of these streets. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's theorization of abstract space, or overdetermined spaces that attempt to crush any agency, I consider how tactics such as walking can open permanent room for rhetorical agency in abstract spaces. By attending to a common but particular rhetorical space that figures materially in the everyday lives of American consumers, I explore the possibilities of agency in a fixed rhetorical space.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2012-01-01
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2011.622342
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Open Access
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Topics
modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (8)

  1. Shaw (2023)
    Toxic Contamination and Land-Body Relations: Storytelling, Metaphor, and Topoi …
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  2. Pâquet (2020)
    A Rhetoric of Walking and Reading: Immersion in Environmental Ambient Literature
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  3. Pezzullo et al. (2018)
    Resistance: Taking a Stand, Struggling to Matter
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  4. Johnson (2016)
    Paving the Way to Prosperity: Ford Motor Company’s Films, Interstitial Rhetoric…
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  5. Arduser (2016)
    Rhetoric in American Anthropology: Gender, Genre, and Science, by Risa Applegar…
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  1. Kalin et al. (2016)
    Wearing the City: Memory P(a)laces, Smartphones, and the Rhetorical Invention o…
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  2. Simonson (2014)
    Reinventing Invention, Again
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  3. Milbourne et al. (2013)
    Gender, Material Chronotopes, and the Emergence of the Eighteenth-Century Microscope
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References (22) · 3 in this index

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CrossRef global citation count: 15 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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