Transnational Feminist Rhetorics in a Digital World

Mary Queen

Despite the important work emerging from both the global and digital turn in rhetoric and composition studies, one key area has yet to be examined: the central role that the circulation of digital texts plays in the transformation and appropriation of feminist discourse. This article proposes a new methodology for analyzing the processes through which the global circulation of digital representations become rhetorical and, ultimately, political actions. Feminist rhetorical studies must extend its analyses to examine how the modes of digital circulation matter in the mediation of relations among groups, communities, and nations because this digital circulation often constructs and reinforces binary oppositions and rhetorics of superiority.

Linking Transnational Logics: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Public Policy Networks
Rebecca Dingo

Links among the World Bank’s gender-mainstreaming policies and recent U.S. welfare policies demonstrate how transnationalism enables international gendered logics to become national (and international) norms. The metaphor of the network helps feminist rhetoricians to expose how transnational linkages shape domestic and international policies by articulating the complex relationships among gendered logics, power, and occasion.

Pleasurable Pedagogies: Reading Lolita in Tehran and the Rhetoric of Empathy
Theresa A. Kulbaga

This essay examines Azar Nafisi’s bestselling memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), in the context of U.S. book club culture. It argues that the memoir appeals to U.S. audiences by mobilizing a neoliberal rhetoric and pedagogy of empathy that positions the U.S. as the geopolitical center of feminist empowerment and human rights.

Response: A World of Difference
Deepika Bahri

The author responds to the editors’ introduction as well as to the articles by Queen, Dingo, and Kulbaga, emphasizing that feminists need to relate theories of rhetoric to theories of transnationalism if both areas of thought are to be useful.

Review: Knowledge Making Within Transnational Connectivities
Min-Zhan Lu

Reviewed is Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms by Inderpal Grewal.