What It Feels Like - Visceral Rhetoric and the Politics of Rape Culture (Paperback)

Winner of the 2022 Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine (ARSTM) Book Award Winner of the 2022 Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award from the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition 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.

General

Imprint:	Pennsylvania State University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation
Release date:	December 2022
Authors:	Stephanie R. Larson (Assistant Professor of English)
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 16mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	232
ISBN-13:	978-0-271-09144-0
Categories:	Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Communication studies > General Books > Law > English law > Private, property, family > Gender law Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > General
LSN:	0-271-09144-4
Barcode:	9780271091440

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