Abstract

Though scholars debate whether Foucault offers a viable theory of resistance, his analysis of parrhesia(fearless speech) poses and problematizes an oppositional rhetoric of truth-telling. Fearless speech challenges regimes of power/truth; spiritual narratives of Early Modern women challenge cultural norms to justify their right to speak. The rhetorical strategies that women use to authorize their writing—performing a struggle between God and Satan, recording revelation, and reinterpreting scripture—make them vulnerable to stereotypical criticisms of madness and witchcraft. Nonetheless, female spiritual narratives courageously critique religious and social culture, playing Foucault's “parrhesiastic game”: these texts break silence to tell truth. A notion of a contemporary rhetor-as-parrhesiastes reflects the historical evolution of parrhesia towards critique and self-questioning. A contemporary parrhesiastes interrogates guises of generalized Truth to give voice to experiential, localized, multiple truths.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2007-10-01
DOI
10.1080/02773940601078072
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Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Philosophy & Rhetoric
  2. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  3. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  4. Philosophy & Rhetoric

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