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Resistance without 'the subject'
Abstract
This dissertation theorizes political resistance in the wake of critiques of the transcendental subject made by poststructuralist theorists. After a review of the theoretical approaches among U.S. rhetoricians to the "rhetoric of social movements" (1965-1985), I review the contributions of three French post-structuralists (Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jean Baudrillard) to theories of discourse and resistance, concluding with Michel de Certeau's correctives to them. The final two chapters propose a theory of political resistance which distinguishes rhetorical performance from rhetorical performativity to account for two forms of resistance in tension within the post-WWII "new social movements" in the U.S. Focusing specifically on the gay liberation movement, one chapter analyzes dance and popular culture (through Madonna's "Vogue" video and the cult it stems from/spawns) as sites of resistance where signifiers of gender, race, and sexuality are deployed, but evade the essentializing rhetorics and institutional forms of power seen in the field of identity. The final chapter analyzes the modes through which new right identity construction and gay liberation identity construction work in tandem, and in relation to black civil rights identity to constitute a contested field of power. I argue that identity is not a developmental accomplishment, but a deontic closure which both constitutes and is constituted by the discourse of "minority" in the U.S., and, therefore, related to a range of social practices from segmented advertising to legal claims to civil rights.
Subject Area
Mass communications|Social research|Womens studies|Cultural anthropology|LGBTQ studies
Recommended Citation
Patton, Cynthia Kay, "Resistance without 'the subject'" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9233129.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9233129