Literacy studies scholarship and pedagogy have not attended comprehensively to Jewish cultural literacies or the discursive operations of anti-Jewish hate. As a result, antisemitic rhetoric may be employed, strategically or accidentally, by people who do not see themselves as antisemitic--and who, regardless of their critical and cultural…

This essay discusses Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's choice to foreground arguments from due process rather than equal protection in the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas. Kennedy's choice can realize constitutional legal doctrine that is more consistent with radical queer politics than arguments from equal protection. Unlike some recent…

With the hope of inspiring readers to reimagine the centrality of general education in constituting young adult capacities to create and sustain collective self-governance, this essay describes two courses and one activity built around public problems. General education viewed as a human right as well as a shared responsibility can thus serve as a…

Does rhetoric have a place in the discourse of human rights? Without certain reply, as the dilemmas of defining, claiming, and promoting human rights appear both to include and exclude the rhetorical gesture, this question invites inquiry into the preface of the contemporary human rights regime, the moment of the aftermath that provokes a struggle…

The mainstream press frequently characterized the election of President Barack Obama, the first African American US President, as the realization of Martin Luther King's dream, thus crafting a postracial narrative of national transcendence. I argue that this routine characterization of Obama's election functions as a site for the production of…

The "twisted cyber spy" affair began in 2010, when Google was attacked by Chinese cyber-warriors charged with stealing Google's intellectual property, planting viruses in its computers, and hacking the accounts of Chinese human rights activists. In the ensuing international embroglio, the US mainstream press, corporate leaders, and White…

In this essay, the author examines the digital circulations of representations of one Afghan women's rights organization--the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)--to demonstrate the importance of a global and digital field for feminist rhetorical analysis. Specifically, this analysis traces how women's self-representations are…

Analyzes selected speeches by feminists active in the early Afro-American protest, revealing differences in their rhetoric and that of White feminists of the period. Argues that a simultaneous analysis and synthesis is necessary to understand these differences. Illustrates speeches by Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell. (JD)

Discusses the effective rhetoric of Dr. King's "Letter" in terms of his use of refutative logic to address two audiences simultaneously, using one to provide a focus through which the other could be addressed. The "Letter" is adapted to both audiences on structural, logical, and stylistic levels. (JMF)

Contributes to scholarship on rhetorical theory and political judgment theory by examining how the rhetoric of Reconstruction congressional actors expressed divergent modes of political judgment regarding the civil rights of African Americans. Contends that proponents and opponents enacted adverse norms of discursive practice and competing…

Contributes to scholarship on rhetorical criticism and the civil rights movement by interrogating the memory of the 1963 March on Washington. Analyzes remarks delivered by John Lewis. Compares Lewis's prepared speech with the speech he delivered. Reveals a synecdochic struggle over the rhetoric of the civil rights movement and what was sayable in…

Using rhetorical and historical approaches, this paper examines speech excerpts of four speakers active during the civil rights movement in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The paper's first section discusses Malcolm X and a speech delivered two months before his assassination; the second section studies James Allen speaking on…

Identifies and assesses the values displayed in Lyndon Johnson's communication about the riots during his term of office. (PD)

Contributes to rhetorical scholarship by analyzing the life and work of the intellectual, quiet, enigmatic civil rights leader Robert Parris Moses. Analyzes Moses's substantive message, personal persona, and second persona as synergistic and reciprocal elements of reconstitutive identification by understanding his rhetorical goals and the…

Examines Lyndon Johnson's rhetoric in bringing about a shift in the concept of "equal opportunity" from nondiscrimination to affirmative action through the process of dissociation. Defines dissociation as separating a unitary concept into parts, identifying the less valued part, and reformulating the more valued part. (JMF)