By the mid-1990s feminist theorists and critics began to challenge conventional thinking about se... more By the mid-1990s feminist theorists and critics began to challenge conventional thinking about sex difference and its relationship to gender and sexuality. Scholars such as Anne Fausto-Sterling and Judith Butler troubled the sex-gender/nature-nurture divide. Some have asserted that these questions about sex are much too abstract to contribute to a valuable understanding of the material politics faced by feminist movements. In A Question of Sex , Kristan Poirot challenges the notion that feminism is a movement that champions the fact of sex, while allowing more diverse readings of gender. She argues that such views risk marshaling a naïve understanding of feminist movement practices across generations.
Poirot focuses on five case studies: the circulation of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” in early and contemporary feminist contexts; the visual rhetorics of the feminist self-help health movement; the public discourse of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and early nineteenth century ideas about suffrage, sex, and race; the conflicts over lesbian sexuality in the 1960s and 1970s; and the discourse that surrounds twenty-first century SlutWalks. In the process, Poirot rethinks the terms through which we understand U.S. feminist movements to explore the ways feminism has questioned sexed distinctions and practices over time. She emphasizes the importance of reading feminist engagements with sex as rhetorical endeavors—practices, in other words, that are shaped by the instrumental demands of movements, the exigent situations that call for feminists to respond, and the enduring philosophical traditions that circulate in U.S. political contexts
When publics remember southern black freedom movements they often forget women’s pivotal roles as... more When publics remember southern black freedom movements they often forget women’s pivotal roles as activists and leaders. In fact, the South’s civil rights public memorial landscape—a conglomeration of museums and memorials that help comprise the region’s profitable black heritage tourism industry—is one that promotes a “Great Man” perspective. Although scholars recognize the importance of recovery projects that aim to recenter women’s roles in black freedom struggles, when it comes to these memory practices, the “woman problem” of civil rights memory is more acknowledged than understood. This essay argues that memories of civil rights movements are mapped spatially and rhetorically to depict correlations among Jim Crow contexts and acts of black resistance. The relationship between these spatial and rhetorical configurations are termed as the rhetorical geography of memory. Through an account of the rhetorical geography of memory of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, this essay posits that place, violence, and masculinity to animate a relationship between exigency and response, producing a gendered landscape of memory that limits at the outset the conditions and possibilities for women’s emergence.
Historical and heritage tourism is a booming industry across the United States, and southern stat... more Historical and heritage tourism is a booming industry across the United States, and southern states in particular offer tourists the chance to walk the streets where some of the United States’ most
dramatic racial conflicts unfolded. In these contexts, publics are invited to remember slavery in
strategic ways. This essay enriches rhetorical studies’ understanding of the relationship between
place and public memory by offering a robust consideration of tourism as a constitutive component
of memory environments. We do so through a closer look at the memories of urban slavery and rebellion that circulate in Charleston, South Carolina’s historical tourism industry.
By the mid-1990s feminist theorists and critics began to challenge conventional thinking about se... more By the mid-1990s feminist theorists and critics began to challenge conventional thinking about sex difference and its relationship to gender and sexuality. Scholars such as Anne Fausto-Sterling and Judith Butler troubled the sex-gender/nature-nurture divide. Some have asserted that these questions about sex are much too abstract to contribute to a valuable understanding of the material politics faced by feminist movements. In A Question of Sex , Kristan Poirot challenges the notion that feminism is a movement that champions the fact of sex, while allowing more diverse readings of gender. She argues that such views risk marshaling a naïve understanding of feminist movement practices across generations.
Poirot focuses on five case studies: the circulation of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” in early and contemporary feminist contexts; the visual rhetorics of the feminist self-help health movement; the public discourse of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and early nineteenth century ideas about suffrage, sex, and race; the conflicts over lesbian sexuality in the 1960s and 1970s; and the discourse that surrounds twenty-first century SlutWalks. In the process, Poirot rethinks the terms through which we understand U.S. feminist movements to explore the ways feminism has questioned sexed distinctions and practices over time. She emphasizes the importance of reading feminist engagements with sex as rhetorical endeavors—practices, in other words, that are shaped by the instrumental demands of movements, the exigent situations that call for feminists to respond, and the enduring philosophical traditions that circulate in U.S. political contexts
When publics remember southern black freedom movements they often forget women’s pivotal roles as... more When publics remember southern black freedom movements they often forget women’s pivotal roles as activists and leaders. In fact, the South’s civil rights public memorial landscape—a conglomeration of museums and memorials that help comprise the region’s profitable black heritage tourism industry—is one that promotes a “Great Man” perspective. Although scholars recognize the importance of recovery projects that aim to recenter women’s roles in black freedom struggles, when it comes to these memory practices, the “woman problem” of civil rights memory is more acknowledged than understood. This essay argues that memories of civil rights movements are mapped spatially and rhetorically to depict correlations among Jim Crow contexts and acts of black resistance. The relationship between these spatial and rhetorical configurations are termed as the rhetorical geography of memory. Through an account of the rhetorical geography of memory of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, this essay posits that place, violence, and masculinity to animate a relationship between exigency and response, producing a gendered landscape of memory that limits at the outset the conditions and possibilities for women’s emergence.
Historical and heritage tourism is a booming industry across the United States, and southern stat... more Historical and heritage tourism is a booming industry across the United States, and southern states in particular offer tourists the chance to walk the streets where some of the United States’ most
dramatic racial conflicts unfolded. In these contexts, publics are invited to remember slavery in
strategic ways. This essay enriches rhetorical studies’ understanding of the relationship between
place and public memory by offering a robust consideration of tourism as a constitutive component
of memory environments. We do so through a closer look at the memories of urban slavery and rebellion that circulate in Charleston, South Carolina’s historical tourism industry.
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Poirot focuses on five case studies: the circulation of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” in early and contemporary feminist contexts; the visual rhetorics of the feminist self-help health movement; the public discourse of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and early nineteenth century ideas about suffrage, sex, and race; the conflicts over lesbian sexuality in the 1960s and 1970s; and the discourse that surrounds twenty-first century SlutWalks. In the process, Poirot rethinks the terms through which we understand U.S. feminist movements to explore the ways feminism has questioned sexed distinctions and practices over time. She emphasizes the importance of reading feminist engagements with sex as rhetorical endeavors—practices, in other words, that are shaped by the instrumental demands of movements, the exigent situations that call for feminists to respond, and the enduring philosophical traditions that circulate in U.S. political contexts
dramatic racial conflicts unfolded. In these contexts, publics are invited to remember slavery in
strategic ways. This essay enriches rhetorical studies’ understanding of the relationship between
place and public memory by offering a robust consideration of tourism as a constitutive component
of memory environments. We do so through a closer look at the memories of urban slavery and rebellion that circulate in Charleston, South Carolina’s historical tourism industry.
Poirot focuses on five case studies: the circulation of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” in early and contemporary feminist contexts; the visual rhetorics of the feminist self-help health movement; the public discourse of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and early nineteenth century ideas about suffrage, sex, and race; the conflicts over lesbian sexuality in the 1960s and 1970s; and the discourse that surrounds twenty-first century SlutWalks. In the process, Poirot rethinks the terms through which we understand U.S. feminist movements to explore the ways feminism has questioned sexed distinctions and practices over time. She emphasizes the importance of reading feminist engagements with sex as rhetorical endeavors—practices, in other words, that are shaped by the instrumental demands of movements, the exigent situations that call for feminists to respond, and the enduring philosophical traditions that circulate in U.S. political contexts
dramatic racial conflicts unfolded. In these contexts, publics are invited to remember slavery in
strategic ways. This essay enriches rhetorical studies’ understanding of the relationship between
place and public memory by offering a robust consideration of tourism as a constitutive component
of memory environments. We do so through a closer look at the memories of urban slavery and rebellion that circulate in Charleston, South Carolina’s historical tourism industry.