Pairing literature on constitutive rhetoric with Julia Kristeva's work on the abject as a theoretical framework, we examine the rhetoric of U.S. media that report with alarm and dismay on the activities of female suicide bombers in the so-called war on terrorism. By examining the media-described actions of female suicide bombers as abject, and their acts as a type of “situated utterance,” we are able to trace the ways in which both are articulated by U.S. mass media with cultural tropes that constitute a particular identity or subjectivity of the American audience in which these discourses circulate. Audiences are invited to articulate the violence of these women with already existing cultural understandings of violent women and their bodies. Through these mediated discourses, the U.S. audience is invited to understand these actions as the insane acts of uncontained sociopaths, not as meaningful, although acutely violent, situated utterances.

This essay critiques and creates metaphoric genetic rhetoric by examining metaphors for genes used by representatives of the lay American public. We assess these metaphors with a new rhetorical orientation that we developed by building onto work by Robert Ivie and social scientific qualitative studies of audiences. Specifically, our analysis reveals three themes of genetic metaphors, with the first two appearing most frequently: 1) genes as a disease or problem 2) genes as fire or bomb, and 3) genes as gambling. We not only discuss the problems and untapped potential of these metaphors, but also we suggest metaphorically understanding genes interacting with the environment as a dance or a band. This essay has implications for rhetorical criticism, science studies, and public health.