Call for Book Chapters Decolonizing Public Address: American Indian Rhetoric and the Struggle for Self-Determination

Editors:
Casey Ryan Kelly, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Critical Communication & Media Studies, Butler University
Jason Edward Black, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Project Rationale:

In one of his foundational essays on the rhetoric of American Indian activism, Randall A. Lake (1991) argues that Euro-American constructs of history and linear time “relegates contemporary native grievances to the perhaps regrettable but certainly unalterable past. It dismisses the entire rationale for activism, that is, traditional tribal worldviews, as a primitive and outmoded way of thinking” (p. 129). “Time’s arrow,” he argued, continues to negate American Indians claim for self-determination by severing the link between past and present, enforcing an illusory if not self-serving binary between tradition and modernity, myth and history. In response to this recurring exigence, this edited volume seeks essays that illustrate the enduring timeliness of American Indian rhetoric and public address, in particular, articulations of survivance outside of or in resistance to colonial and neocolonial practices of the American settler state. As survivors of genocide, mnemonicide, colonization, and rhetorical exclusion, American Indians face a unique set of rhetorical exigencies in US public culture. Scholars who have examined the history of American Indians “talking back” to Euro-American discourse, law, and policy have illustrated not only the dynamics of rhetorical exclusion but also the inventive strategies and tactics of Native resistance. As Jason Edward Black (2015) contends “American Indian populations were not helpless and voiceless . . . Native groups ‘talked back,’ which helped them reconstitute their own identities, rebuke governmental policies, and reconfigure US identities in the rhetorical process” (p. 6). Moreover, the vast expanse of Indian Country and indigenous North America possesses a plurality of distinct, multivocal, and hybrid indigenous communities who represent an extraordinary diversity of rhetorical practices, all of which are profoundly shaped by Native history, geography, religion, language, and politics. American Indians are far from a footnote or appendix to rhetoric in US public culture. To the contrary, Native voices are foundational to American history, culture, and experience. Recent events at Standing Rock, including collective resistance to the Dakota Pipeline and the violent legacy of US extraction industries, compel us to propose this volume sooner rather than later.

A small but prolific group of rhetorical scholars have worked over the past thirty years to rethink rhetorical theory, criticism, and public address through an indigenous lens. These scholars have produced insights into the consummatory function of Red Power rhetoric (Lake, 1983; 1991), the political and educational challenges of Euro-American audience identification (Endres, 2011; Morris & Wander, 1990; Sanchez & Stuckey, 2000), the rhetoric of decolonization (Kelly, 2014; Black, 2015; 2012), the rhetoric of Indian Affairs policy (Kelly, 2014; 2010; Strickland, 1982), indigenous public memory (Dickinson, Ott, & Aoki, 2006; Ewalt, 2011; McGeough, Palczewski, & Lake, 2015; Palczewski, 2005; Schmitt, 2015), Native responses to rhetorical exclusion (Endres, 2009; Meister & Burnett, 2004; Morris, 1997; Sanchez, Stuckey, and Morris, 1999), violence and Indian-hating (Engels, 2005; Stuckey & Murphy, 2001), resistance to stereotypes and mascotting (Black, 2002; Endres, 2015; Sanchez & Stuckey, 2000), and cultural identity and self-identification (Cullier & Ross, 2007; Kelly, 2011). But, the work continues. This year at the 2016 annual National Communication Association conference, there were at least seven different panels and paper sessions devoted to exploring the dynamics of American Indian and/or indigenous voices. These panels included not only established scholars but new voices interested in both historic and contemporary studies of rhetoric about, but most importantly, of indigenous peoples. In light of the ongoing vibrancy of this scholarship, the goal of this volume is to showcase the extraordinary contributions of American Indian discourse and indigenous perspectives to rhetorical theory and studies of American public address, broadly conceived.

Decolonizing Public Address calls for critical case study oriented essays that bring new perspectives on rhetoric and political communication by attending to the complex rhetorical agency of American indigenous communities, including but not limited to Native resistance movements, culture and identity controversies, Native legal argument and political discourse, indigenous digital activism, stereotypes and representation, as well as rhetorically-guided examinations of particular controversies such as mascots, gaming, religion, land-use policy, sovereignty, criminal jurisdiction, citizenship and blood quantum, science and archaeology, media representations, waste siting and nuclear colonialism, natural resource exploitation, or similar topics. This volume is particularly interested in projects that question the intersections of civic identity, including how American indigenous rhetoric is complicated by or made more dynamic when refracted through the lens of gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, and nationality. This project is open to a variety of rhetorical methods, theories, and texts but will remain committed to the larger academic movement toward the decolonization of Western scholarship. The goal of this project is illustrate the invaluable contributions of American Indian voices and perspectives to the study of rhetoric and public address.

Instructions for submission:

Please submit an extended abstract (250-500 words, excluding bibliography) that provides an overview of the proposed chapter, including a description the chapter’s central argument, critical/theoretical contribution, and fit for the volume. Please include a short author bio with the submission (100 words). After review, competitive submissions will be invited to submit full drafts of the chapter. At this point, the proposal will be submitted to the Peter Lang book series “Frontiers in Political Communication,” edited by Mary E. Stuckey and Mitchell S. McKinney. Below is the timeline for the project:

Abstracts Due: April 1, 2017

Invitations for Full Chapter Submission: May, 1 2017

Submission of Proposal to Press: No later than June 1, 2017

Full Draft Submissions Due: November 1, 2017

Request for Revisions and Final Submission to Press: TBA

All submissions should be delivered electronically in MS Word to crkelly@butler.edu with the subject heading “Decolonizing Public Address.” Submissions should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style (16th Edition) and use endnote citations. All submissions will receive an email confirmation. Please direct all inquiries to Casey Kelly crkelly@butler.edu or Jason Black jblac143@uncc.edu.