Active Voices

Explores the relationship between social movements and rhetorical theory and practice.

From suffragettes to vegans, participants in social movements strive to change the worlds they inhabit, whether by direct action, rallies, marches, organized work stoppages, or engaging government power in service of their aims. Active Voices explores both the rhetorical dimensions of such activist activities and the integral role of rhetoric in the processes of social transformation. This collection balances in-depth analyses of particular movements and pedagogical projects with broader perspectives on how language and embodied action shape avenues for activism. Featured are a wide range of sites for social change, from the progressive education movement to African American drum circles, and from prisoner reentry programs to the nineteenth-century women's suffrage movement. Speaking as scholars, activists, storytellers, rhetoricians, and teachers, the contributors blur the boundaries between different aspects of their identities and challenge divisions between creating theory and practicing it.