Rhetoric of Power and Protest – serie

At the turn of the twentieth century, the white slavery panic pervaded American politics, influencing the creation of the FBI, the enactment of immigration law, and the content of international treaties. At the core of this controversy was the maintenance of white national space. In this comprehensive account of the Progressive Era’s sex trafficking rhetoric, Leslie Harris demonstrates the centrality of white womanhood, as a symbolic construct, to the structure of national space and belonging. Introducing the framework of the mobile imagination to read across different scales of the controversy—ranging from local to transnational—she establishes how the imaginative possibilities of mobility within public controversy work to constitute belonging in national space.

Our political landscape is crowded with competing voices—claims, demands, grievances, and even acts of violence—all made in the name of some idea of “the people.” This powerful concept has been wielded both to assert democratic sovereignty and to justify exclusion and control. Violent Histories, Livable Futures unpacks this complex dynamic through compelling historical case studies, spanning sub-Saharan Africa in the 1950s, post–World War II Guatemala, and the United States in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. By tracing how societies have contended over which people matter and which do not, this book offers a deeply relevant exploration of power, representation, and the struggle for justice, all in pursuit of a more livable future.

Henpecked: Winston Churchill and Women’s Suffrage explores the recurrent interactions between Winston Churchill and the women’s suffrage movement in Britain. Churchill purposely concealed, under a discursive veil, his complex and shifting perceptions of women’s competency to use the franchise. In balancing a public stance that vaguely favored the “principle” of women’s suffrage with his, often private, opposition to the movement’s legislative efforts, he employed every available rhetorical tool. This book presents a new understanding of his early Parliamentary career, his ability to manipulate public and private discourse, and his complicated stance on women’s right to vote. This rhetorical history challenges the view that Winston Churchill was only dissuaded in his support of women’s suffrage by the militancy of suffrage activists.