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.

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Consuming Prose: The Delectable Rhetoric of Food Writing
Lynn Z. Bloom

The author surveys various characteristics of contemporary food writing, identifying not only technical features but ways in which such texts shape and invite certain kinds of reader response.

Food Memoirs: What They Are, Why They are Popular, and Why They Belong in the Literature Classroom
Barbara Frey Waxman

Through analyzing specific examples, the author identifies recurring themes of the genre known as the food memoir, calling attention in particular to its value as multicultural literature.

Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement
Stephen Schneider

The author examines the history and rhetoric of the Slow Food movement, relating it in particular to protests against globalization.

The Organic Foods System: Its Discursive Achievements and Prospects
David Nowacek and Rebecca S. Nowacek

The authors survey the history of struggles over the meaning of organic, emphasizing how these have involved associations that function as activity systems.