Philosophy & Rhetoric May 2018

Of Exterior and Exception: Latin American Rhetoric, Subalternity, and the Politics of Cultural Difference

José M. Cortez University of Utah

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe question of non-Western difference has come to feature prominently across the field of comparative rhetoric, where it is often presupposed that an irreducible difference separates Western from non-Western rhetorical and cultural production. It is on the basis of this presupposition that critics have established a politics of comparative inquiry, whereby restituting the pure consciousness of a non-Western subaltern subject is understood to subvert the hegemony of Western thought. But what exactly is the nature of this difference? In this article I examine the recent turn toward Latin America in the field of comparative rhetoric to argue that this presupposition serves as a constitutive topos—that the object of Latin America is invented rhetorically in the very act of comparative inquiry—and that this presupposition yields a political impasse that the field has yet to think through. Drawing on recent work in Latin American studies, I argue for a rearticulated notion of subalternity as a methodological approach for dealing with this impasse.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2018-05-31
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.51.2.0124
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (7)

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    Thinking in and through Comparative Rhetoric and Decolonial Studies
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. Valdivia (2022)
    Colonial Imaginations: Solitude in theCartas y Relacionesof Hernán Cortés
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  3. Gries et al. (2022)
    Rhetorical New Materialisms (RNM)
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  4. McGee (2021)
    (Re)reading Sor Juana’s Rhetorics: The Intersectional, Cultural, and Feminist R…
    Rhetoric Review
  5. Dziuba et al. (2021)
    Post-Aristotelianism and the Specters of Monolingualism
    Rhetoric Review
Show all 7 →
  1. deTar (2021)
    Why “Anticolonial” International Rhetorical Studies?
    Rhetoric & Public Affairs
  2. García et al. (2020)
    The Trace of a Mark That Scatters: The Anthropoi and the Rhetoric of Decoloniality
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly

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CrossRef global citation count: 11 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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