Active Voices: Composing a Rhetoric for Social Movements - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1438426283 ISBN 13: 9781438426280

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2010

Synopsis

Explores the relationship between social movements and rhetorical theory and practice.

From suffragettes to vegans, participants in social movements strive to change the worlds they inhabit, whether by direct action, rallies, marches, organized work stoppages, or engaging government power in service of their aims. Active Voices explores both the rhetorical dimensions of such activist activities and the integral role of rhetoric in the processes of social transformation. This collection balances in-depth analyses of particular movements and pedagogical projects with broader perspectives on how language and embodied action shape avenues for activism. Featured are a wide range of sites for social change, from the progressive education movement to African American drum circles, and from prisoner reentry programs to the nineteenth-century women's suffrage movement. Speaking as scholars, activists, storytellers, rhetoricians, and teachers, the contributors blur the boundaries between different aspects of their identities and challenge divisions between creating theory and practicing it.

About this title

About the Author

Sharon McKenzie Stevens is Lecturer in the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the author of A Place for Dialogue: Language, Land Use, and Politics in Southern Arizona. Patricia M. Malesh is Assistant Professor of Communication and Associate Director for the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

From the Back Cover

From suffragettes to vegans, participants in social movements strive to change the worlds they inhabit, whether by direct action, rallies, marches, organized work stoppages, or engaging government power in service of their aims. Active Voices explores both the rhetorical dimensions of such activist activities and the integral role of rhetoric in the processes of social transformation. This collection balances in-depth analyses of particular movements and pedagogical projects with broader perspectives on how language and embodied action shape avenues for activism. Featured are a wide range of sites for social change, from the progressive education movement to African American drum circles, and from prisoner reentry programs to the nineteenth-century women's suffrage movement. Speaking as scholars, activists, storytellers, rhetoricians, and teachers, the contributors blur the boundaries between different aspects of their identities and challenge divisions between creating theory and practicing it.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1438426283
• ISBN 13: 9781438426280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 260
• Editor: Stevens Sharon McKenzie, Malesh Patricia M.