Activists and Activism

There are many ways that activism interfaces with rhetorical theory and criticism. Below, I have listed some of the ways that rhetoricians have begun to think of the relationship between scholarly "theory" and activism as a practice.

1. rhetorical criticism is uniquely attuned to the strategies and tactics used by activists in situ.
2. activist texts are rhetorical in their own right; activist theory is rhetorical theory and activists are rhetoricians.
3. activism is a theoretical intervention into commonplaces of the discipline that seeks the transformation of scholarly activity and the systems of value that accord "service" and "organizing" different weights.  
4. activism is a transformation of the culture of scholarly production.

Together, these different approaches pose the following question: what is the place of activism as scholarly work? As a critical purpose of theory, how else might activism inhabit this work?

Activist-scholars and -scholarship also offer good examples of how to state one's critical purpose in writing.  In the document titled “Exercise: Scanning Articles for Content,” you will find a marked-up version of several pages from the Pezzullo and Chavez articles. Please write a brief description of what is happening in the essay (e.g. “thesis statement,” “purpose statement,” “scholarly conversation entry-point”) next to the numbers below.

Additional Sources on Activism and Activist Strategies

• Chávez, “Beyond Inclusion: Rethinking Rhetoric’s Historical Narrative”
• McCann, “Borders of Engagement: Rethinking Scholarship, Activism, and the Academy”
• Pezzullo, “Resisting Breast Cancer Awareness Month”
• Combahee River Collective, “The Combahee River Collective Statement.”
• Cox, “Beyond Frames”
• Cloud and Feyh, “Reason in Revolt”
• DeLuca, “A Wilderness Environmentalism Manifesto”
• DeLuca and Peeples, “From Public Sphere to Public Screen”
• Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere”
• Hallsby, “Resisting the Demand for Transparency”
• hooks, “Theory as a Liberatory Practice”
• Killingworth and Palmer, “The Discourse of 'Environmentalist Hysteria'“
• Larson and McHendry Jr., “Parasitic Publics”
• Manthey, “Mario Savio, “An End to History” (2 Dec 1964) (Speech)
• May, “Spinoza and Class Struggle”
• Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics” (abbreviated) (full)

Examples of Blended Activism and Scholarship

• The 1619 Project
• May 1968
• The “Free Speech Movement”

Other Examples of Manifestos

• Alinsky, “Communication” and “Of Means and Ends” in Rules for Radicals
• Assange, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”