What It Feels Like: Visceral Rhetoric and the Politics of Rape Culture: 27 - Brossura

Larson, Stephanie R.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0271091444 ISBN 13: 9780271091440

Casa editrice: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr, 2022

Riassunto

What It Feels Like interrogates an underexamined reason for our failure to abolish rape in the United States: the way we communicate about it. Using affective and feminist materialist approaches to rhetorical criticism, Stephanie Larson examines how discourses about rape and sexual assault rely on strategies of containment, denying the felt experiences of victims and ultimately stalling broader claims for justice.

Investigating anti-pornography debates from the 1980s, Violence Against Women Act advocacy materials, sexual assault forensic kits, public performances, and the #MeToo movement, Larson reveals how our language privileges male perspectives and, more deeply, how it is shaped by systems of power―patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and heteronormativity. Interrogating how these systems work to propagate masculine commitments to “science” and “hard evidence,” Larson finds that US culture holds a general mistrust of testimony by women, stereotyping it as “emotional.” But she also gives us hope for change, arguing that testimonies grounded in the bodily, material expression of violation are necessary for giving voice to victims of sexual violence and presenting, accurately, the scale of these crimes. Larson makes a case for visceral rhetorics, theorizing them as powerful forms of communication and persuasion.

Demonstrating the communicative power of bodily feeling, Larson challenges the long-held commitment to detached, distant, rationalized discourses of sexual harassment and rape. Timely and poignant, the book offers a much-needed corrective to our legal and political discourses.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull'autore

Stephanie R. Larson is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2022
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0271091444
• ISBN 13: 9780271091440
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 232
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile