The State and Insurrection

Reviews / Votes

"Sensitive Rhetorics is a clear, insightful, and timely intervention into the popular falsehood that college students are overly sensitive to new ideas and perspectives." --Bradford Vivian, Penn State University "In this timely study, Kendall Gerdes makes a powerful case for sensitivity as an indispensable element of an ethical rhetorical theory. Nuanced readings of journalism, academic studies, institutional documents, and student demands offer fresh perspectives on key terms of debate and especially on marginalized students' rhetorical situations and achievements." --Susan Jarratt, University of California, Irvine "Kendall Gerdes compellingly argues that denigrating sensitivity in debates over trigger warnings, sexual misconduct, safe spaces, and campus carry laws denies 'our vulnerability to one another as rhetorical subjects.' With notable energy and lucidity, she contends that demands for sensitivity exemplify the mutual responsibility engendered by our 'irremissible exposedness, ' and call for rethinking 'the force and potential trauma' of affect."
--Nathan Stormer, University of Main