<i>Parrhēsia</i>, Biopolitics, and Occupy

Kelly E. Happe University of Georgia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers Michel Foucault's theories of ethical speech and militant life in the context of Occupy Wall Street's encampments in Zuccotti Park. Focusing on the encampments and the production and circulation of resources to meet bodily needs, the article concludes that occupation was a self-inflicted form of precarity as well as an extension of an already existing vulnerability, a living that is at once a form of social death. I read the occupations as a mode of militant life, which is to say, that which enacts precarity while at the same time transforming it into the object of radical speech.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2015-05-22
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.48.2.0211
Open Access
Closed
Topics

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (5)

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

Cites in this index (1)

  1. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Also cites 12 works outside this index ↓
  1. Adorno, Theodor. 1984. “The Essay as Form.” New German Critique 11: 151–71.
  2. Chaput, Catherine. 2010. “Rhetorical Circulation in Late Capitalism: Neoliberalism and the Overdetermination …
  3. Dean, Jodi. 2011. “Claiming Division, Naming a Wrong.” In Occupy! Scenes from Occupied America, ed. Carla Blu…
  4. DeLuca, Kevin Michael. 1999. “Unruly Arguments: The Body Rhetoric of EarthFirst!, Act Up, and Queer Nation.” …
  5. DeLuca, Kevin Michael, Sean Lawson, and Ye Sun. 2012. “Occupy Wall Street on the Public Screens of Social Med…
  6. Endres, Danielle, and Samantha Senda-Cook. 2011. “Location Matters: The Rhetoric of Place in Protest.” Quarte…
  7. Frank, Thomas. “To the Precinct Station: How Theory Met Practice … and Drove It Absolutely Crazy.” Baffler 21…
  8. Greene, Ronald Walter. 2004. “Rhetoric and Capitalism: Rhetorical Agency as Communicative Labor.” Philosophy …
  9. Hong, Grace Kyungwon. 2012. “Existentially Surplus: Women of Color Feminism and the New Crises of Capitalism.…
  10. Keeling, Kara. 2009. “Looking for M—: Queer Temporality, Black Political Possibility, and Poetry from the Fut…
  11. Murray, Stuart. 2007. “Care and the Self: Biotechnology, Reproduction, and the Good Life.” Philosophy, Ethics…
  12. Wesling Meg. 2012. “Queer Value.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 18 (1): 107–25.
CrossRef global citation count: 14 View in citation network →