Rebecca Dingo

Beyond Affirmation inspires feminist rhetorical scholarship to shift attention from the speech and action of individual rhetors to analysis of how and with what consequence rhetorics circulate. The book considers the rise of feminist rhetorical theory and historicizes it within the political moment of the Cold War. Beyond Affirmation attends to the rhetorical legacies of the Cold War and its imperialist project, showing how sentimentality subsumed the US academy and dominant feminist rhetorical method of recovery, resulting in the creation of exceptional rhetorical figures. Demonstrating politics of recovery work, chapters offer new methods for the twenty-first century. Through distinct case studies, the authors track the rhetorical processes through which subjects establish certain gendered, raced, imperial, or national political objectives. Rebecca Dingo and Rachel C. Riedner argue that scholars must address the contexts within which social actors speak and act as well as how rhetorical agency and action can be picked up and circulated for political purposes. By forwarding a transnational feminist rhetorical analytic as an alternative to rhetorics of affirmation, Beyond Affirmation emphasizes solidarity.

Networking Arguments presents an original study on the use and misuse of global institutional rhetoric and the effects of these practices on women, particularly in developing countries. Using a feminist lens, Rebecca Dingo views the complex networks that rhetoric flows through, globally and nationally, and how itÆs often reconfigured to work both for and against women and to maintain existing power structures.

To see how rhetorics travel, Dingo deconstructs the central terminology employed by global institutions—mainstreaming, fitness, and empowerment—and shows how their meanings shift depending on the contexts in which theyÆre used. She studies programs by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the United States, among others, to view the original policies, then follows the trail of their diffusion and manipulation and the ultimate consequences for individuals.

To analyze transnational rhetorical processes, Dingo builds a theoretical framework by employing concepts of transcoding, ideological traffic, and interarticulation to uncover the intricacies of power relationships at work within networks. She also views transnational capitalism, neoliberal economics, and neocolonial ideologies as primary determinants of policy and arguments over womenÆs roles in the global economy.

Networking Arguments offers a new method of feminist rhetorical analysis that allows for an increased understanding of global gender policies and encourages strategies to counteract the negative effects they can create.