Kirt H. Wilson

Towards a discursive theory of racial identity: The souls of black folk as a response to nineteenth‐century biological determinism

This essay interprets W. E. B. Du Boiss The Souls of Black Folk as a response to nineteenth‐century racial science and the ideology of biological determinism. It argues that Souls inverts the racist claims of nineteenth‐century science through direct analysis, a style that combines art and reason and makes a methodological shift from studying what Black is to studying what being Black means. Du Boiss critical practice in The Souls of Black Folk moved scholarship along with two conceptual innovations‐the veil of race and double consciousness toward a discursive theory of race that foreshadowed cultural/minority studies and critical race theory.

The contested space of prudence in the 1874–1875 civil rights debate

This essay examines how the rhetoric of Reconstruction congressional actors expressed divergent modes of political judgment with respect to the civil rights of African Americans. Through an interpretive analysis of the 1874–1875 civil rights debate, the essay contends that proponents and opponents enacted adverse norms of discursive practice and competing conceptions of equality. This conflicts discourse helped to bring about the separate but equal doctrine that guided race relations into the next century. This essay concludes that when studied as a contested space, prudence can reveal the evolution of a rhetorical culture and community.

Political Paradoxes and the Black Jeremiad: Frederick Douglass's Immanent Theory of Rhetorical Protest

ABSTRACT In this article, the author argues that throughout his political career, Frederick Douglass positioned himself between two positions that created a seeming paradox—a sharp critique of American racism and an affirmation of American exceptionalism and the countrys divine destiny to lead the world. Douglass managed this balance through his oratory and, especially, through the rhetorical strategies of association and dissociation, identification and division. The author argues further that Douglass used these strategies within a Black jeremiadic rhetoric that crafted a messianic vision for the nation. Although this vision created an essential role for African Americans within the countrys mythology and purpose, it also, again paradoxically, subsumed the unique interests of the Black community within a nationalist future that did not transcend Whiteness. Thus, although Douglass is remembered as an uncompromising champion for Black rights, his specific use of association and dissociation make him a difficult model on which to build contemporary protest.

Race and Reconciliation: Redressing Wounds of Injustice, by John B. Hatch

Race and Reconciliation is an ambitious study of recent trends in sociopolitical reconciliation within and among nation-states. At 401 pages the book is one of the most exhaustive considerations of its subject published by a rhetoric scholar. The project shines especially in its early chapters where John Hatch argues that the phenomenon we associate with truth commissions, national apologies, and state sponsored efforts at restitution is understood best through the application of rhetorical theory and criticism. Leaning heavily on Kenneth Burke, and, to a lesser extent, Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory, Hatch offers an alternative to those who view reconciliation solely in political or social–psychological terms. The majority of the book builds toward Hatch’s distinctive theory of reconciliation. For researchers who share this interest, the text’s scope and its interrogation of existing literature is invaluable. For some readers, however, the book’s theoretical focus and ambition may become a problem. Because it tries to accomplish so much, the work is sometimes confusing as to how its ethical commitments apply to the complexities of a specific historical context. Furthermore, when the reader’s attention is turned to specific instances of reconciliation (chapters 7–9), the conceptual subtleties that occupied two-thirds of the work are not readily apparent. The following describes the book’s ten chapters and offers a critical commentary on the work as a whole. Race and Reconciliation’s initial chapter illustrates a major obstacle to the study of reconciliation; how does one define the titular concept? Despite the many political, religious, and social transformations of the past twenty years, little consensus exists about how to define state sponsored forms of reconciliation and whether or not the phenomenon includes a limited set of activities (e.g., apologies, restitution, truth commissions, forgiveness). Hatch contends that ‘‘reconciliation is helpfully understood in terms of what Mikhail Bakhtin calls a secondary speech genre, a complex form of verbal action subsuming (and transforming) a set of primary genres, or simple symbolic acts’’ (7). From his foundation, he concludes that reconciliation is ‘‘a dialogic rhetorical process of rectifying wrongs and healing relationships between parties, in ways that promote their common good’’ (9). Hatch’s insistence that reconciliation is primarily, although not exclusively, a genre leads him to identify a productive tension between the unique dialogue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly Vol. 41, No. 5, pp. 495–502

The Reconstruction Presidents (review)

Brooks Simpson, professor of history and humanities at Arizona State University, pursues an ambitious agenda in The Reconstruction Presidents. Using a traditional perspective that is rare today, he explains the complexities of the postCivil War era by unpacking the moves and motives of its presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes. In the process, Simpson offers an insightful overview of the periods national politics that is significant for its scope and coherence. Those who found the regional detail of Eric Foners Reconstruction: Americas Unfinished Revolution (1988) overwhelming will enjoy the direct narrative and concise plot of The Reconstruction Presidents. Readers with an interest in the periods historiography or presidential studies will be interested in the texts method as well as its substance.