Abstract

AbstractRhetorical studies as a discipline relies on a set of theories and a geography of case studies that circularly reinforce one another to authorize white-Euro-American traditions of knowledge beholden to colonial ways of knowing the world. Calls to “internationalize” the cases and topics of rhetorical studies are easily subsumed by the self-authorizing racist epistemology of the discipline, since additive models of “diverse” cases repurpose diversity to reinforce the authority of the discipline as it already exists. How should the globalization of rhetorical studies address the disciplinary logic of white, colonial, U.S. normativity? Studying non-U.S., non-Western rhetorical practice must be an anticolonial political intervention to fundamentally reimagine the discipline or it will risk reproducing a racist disciplinary structure.This essay maps three ways that scholars studying “international” cases have led a restructuring of the discipline by challenging the presumptions of universality that creep into scholarship. Anticolonial rhetorical scholars challenge processes of universalization as method, as rhetorical practice, and as ontology. When these processes of universalization become the object of study for rhetorical scholars, there is a possibility that rhetorical studies can develop the reflexivity to challenge its own circularly reinforcing, exclusionary disciplinary logic of white-U.S. normativity.

Journal
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published
2021-03-01
DOI
10.14321/rhetpublaffa.24.1-2.0191
Open Access
Closed
Topics

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Cites in this index (7)

  1. Philosophy & Rhetoric
  2. Philosophy & Rhetoric
  3. Rhetoric Review
  4. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  5. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
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  1. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Also cites 24 works outside this index ↓
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  3. 3. Godfried Agyeman Asante, “#RhetoricSoWhite and US Centered: Reflections on Challenges and Opportunities,” …
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  5. 6. See Matthew deTar, “Absence of the Present: The Reburial of Adnan Menderes and the Condition of Possibilit…
  6. Raka Shome, "Postcolonial Interventions in the Rhetorical Canon: An 'Other' View," Communication Theory 6 (19…
  7. 13. Baugh-Harris and Wanzer-Serrano thus argue for dispensing with a canon in rhetorical studies. Sara Baugh-…
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  16. 28. Ono, “Borders That Travel,” 24. See also Lisa A. Flores, “Constructing Rhetorical Borders: Peons, Illegal…
  17. 29. Pham reads Wanzer-Serrano as analyzing “community” as one such category of practice. Vincent N. Pham, “Bu…
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  19. 36. See also Susana Martínez Guillem, “Precarious Privilege: Indignad@s, Daily Disidentifications, and Cultur…
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