Book Review| December 01 2018 King Returns to Washington King Returns to Washington. By Jefferson Walker. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016; pp. viii + 95. $64.99 cloth. Jennifer Biedendorf Jennifer Biedendorf California State University, Stanislaus Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2018) 21 (4): 725–728. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0725 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jennifer Biedendorf; King Returns to Washington. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2018; 21 (4): 725–728. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.21.4.0725 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2018 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The death of philosopher and public intellectual Jacques Derrida drew international attention and generated public acts of mourning in the media. Several of the published obituaries for Derrida are notable for their overtly hostile and dismissive tone. This essay explores the genre of epideictic rhetoric and is grounded in Derrida’s work on mourning, analyzing several instances of “uncivil” epideictic rhetoric including three hostile obituaries and several responses to them written by friends and colleagues of Derrida for the insight that they yield regarding ethical public remembrance. We argue that a sincere engagement with the ideas of the dead, while always incomplete, is at the heart of an ethical, civil mourning.