Degree Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
2004
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
English
First Advisor
Carl Herndl
Second Advisor
Diane Price-Herndl
Abstract
In this dissertation I theorize and analyze the rhetorical deployment of a "politics of location" within the context of poststructural theories of discourse, subjectivity, and agency. In her book, Blood Bread and Poetry, Adrienne Rich coins the phrase "a politics of location," which marks an effort to move away from a hegemonic Western feminism that universalizes all women's experiences and constructs a normative (and hence limiting and exclusionary) subject of feminism. Rich forwards a politics of location as a radical materialist political stance that grounds feminist theory in accountability for the situatedness of knowledge production. I extend Rich's phrase to theorize how radical, lesbian feminists have used a politics of location as a signifying practice to construct alternative subjectivities and assert discursive agency.;More specifically, in this project I historicize and contextualize a politics of location as it developed within lesbian feminist interchanges during the 1980s and early 90s. This is a significant historical juncture for two reasons. First, the universal concept of "woman" came under radical critique by third-space feminists. Second, feminist publishing houses began to proliferate as a counter-public context for the dissemination of new voices and knowledges, thus allowing for the invention of new discursive strategies within feminist conversations. After historicizing a politics of location, I trace its development as a rhetorical strategy deployed specifically within interchanges between radical, lesbian feminists. Additionally, I use a Foucauldian theory of discursive formations to show how this rhetorical strategy interrupts the normative subject of the rhetorical tradition. Finally, I show how a politics of location contributes to the growing field of research on feminist rhetorical theory.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31274/rtd-180813-13164
Publisher
Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu
Copyright Owner
Catherine Olive-Marie Fox
Copyright Date
2004
Language
en
Proquest ID
AAI3136308
File Format
application/pdf
File Size
216 pages
Recommended Citation
Fox, Catherine Olive-Marie, "Be-coming subjects: reclaiming a politics of location as radical political rhetoric " (2004). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 775.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/775
Included in
Political Science Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons, Women's Studies Commons
