bell hooks

Where/How do you identify with her life?

•For me (dan) it’s:•Her academic life•Her name change•Racism•The conservatizing function of higher ed.•Lack of a connection theory and practice in higher ed.

Hooks Nature of the World

•The world is marked by oppression and exploitation devaluing— reciprocity, community , and mutuality.

•“white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”

•Denial of “connection”(s) (Foss, p. 76)

•“what we can’t imagine, can’t come to be” (Foss, p. 78)

Definition of Feminism

•The struggle to end sexist oppression (end of sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression)

•Attend to systems of domination and inter-relatedness of sex, race, and class oppression

Nature of the Rhetor•Those who have the capacity to address the exigence of domination—are critical thinkers or intellectuals

•“site of radical possibility, a space of resistance—for example black rhetoric and sit-ins and demonstrations: “We may loose five times, and win one,” that’s progress and effective rhetoric of resistance.

•Adoption of the role of critical thinker or enlightened witness

•Recommended Reading: The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control, John W. Bowers & et al. (2nd ed.) Waveland Press

Rhetorical Options•Designed to intervene in practices of domination Process of decolonization

•Colonization is conquering of “minds and habits to internalize and accept inherent inferiority”

•Theory needs to be developed that disrupts and transforms (seven methods)

Rhetorical Options Continued

1. Theory Development:• for concrete situations (her sister in Foss. p. 85) • in an accessible style of writing—for example Linda Putnam

and her visit to MSU-Billings

2. Enactment: live out your beliefs3. Confession: knowledgeable confessions linked to political

world not just narcissistic acts or commodity spectacles4. Dialogue:

• concrete counter-examples to test out and hear responses (Einstein’s “think experiments)

• no censorship in dialogue• also dialogue with those who exploit, oppress, and dominate

Rhetorical Options Continued5. Cultural Criticism:

• actively enter the terrain of poplar culture• television and film

6. Education: • serve in decolonization

7. Community Outreach: • use of women’s groups • minority professors at MSU-Billings

Transformation of Rhetorical Theory

“Designed to disrupt and transform the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal system”

Purpose for Rhetoric: to facilitate the eradication fo the ideology of domination

Hierarchy: reject it as natural

Ethos: marginal rhetors who produce counterhegemonic discourse derived from their personal experiences

Enactment: not a part of traditional rhetorical repertoire—living in ways that are nondomination

Visual Arts: to imagine (image, dan here) new possibilities and alternatives

“Our freedom is sweet. It will be even sweeter when we are all free.”

--bell hooks