Quiet Defiance
The Rhetoric of Silent Protest
Published on 5. February 2025
Book
Hardback
410 pages
978-1-6669-3899-9 (ISBN)
Description
Quiet Defiance: The Rhetoric of Silent Protest focuses on the rhetorical dimensions and power of silent protest. Bridging the gap between the study of protest and the study of rhetorical silence (strategic silence meant to communicate to and influence an audience), this book is the first of its kind to concentrate solely on the phenomenon and tradition of silent protest. The contributors to this volume hail from different cultures, disciplines, and fields. They examine past and present-day cases of silent protest with different research questions and paradigmatic perspectives in mind and methodological approaches at hand. Collectively, however, their original chapters offer a rich, multifaceted understanding of the potentialities, limits, nature, effects, risks, and rewards of silent acts of protest-individual or otherwise-against oppressive, unjust regimes and systems of power.
Reviews / Votes
Quiet Defiance: A Rhetoric Silent Protest is a thought-provoking collection, offering insight into forms of silent resistance that range from blank signs to prison strikes to nonvoting. Individual chapters offer fresh perspective on these and other cases. As a whole, the collection takes seriously and engages meaningfully with the scholarly traditions around each of its key terms, rhetoric, silence, and protest, and will be an invaluable resource for scholars interested in these areas. -- Michelle Gibbons, University of New Hampshire These essays are both focused and far-reaching, suggesting new avenues for the study of both protest rhetoric and nonverbal/non-logocentric rhetoric. In a world with almost too many words, sometimes a lack of words can speak most powerfully ... Highly recommended [for] general readers through faculty; professionals. * CHOICE *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
13 BW Illustrations, 2 Tables
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
804 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-6669-3899-9 (9781666938999)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Quiet Defiance
The Rhetoric of Silent Protest
E-Book
01/2025
1st Edition
Lexington Books
€111.99
Available for download
E-Book
01/2025
1st Edition
Lexington Books
€111.99
Available for download
Persons
David W. Seitz is associate professor of communication at Penn State Mont Alto.
Content
Introduction
David W. Seitz
Part I: Silence, Presence, and Absence
Chapter 1: Speaking in Silence: Rhetoric, Ranciere, and the Blank Sign Protests of 2022
Michael Vicaro
Chapter 2: Vigils for Peace: Silent Presence as Political Action
D. Graham Burnett
Chapter 3: Embodying Absence: Silence and Death at ACT UP's 1992 Ashes Action
Jeffrey B. Nagel
Chapter 4: Silence as Political Engagement: Student-Led Silent Protests Advocating for LGBTQ+ Youth
Kevin R. Meyer and Stephen K. Hunt
Chapter 5: The Rhetoric of Silence as Embodiment: Georgia Prisoners' 2010 "Lockdown for Liberty"
Nick J. Sciullo
Part II: On Colin Kaepernick
Chapter 6: Embodying Resistance: Situating Kaepernick's Performative Symbolic Resistance as an Emic Perspective
Alicia K. Hatcher
Chapter 7: The Silence and the Fury: Colin Kaepernick, Athletic Protest, and Noisy Affects
Dafna Kaufman and Jaclyn Olson
Chapter 8: "I Just Couldn't Be a Sellout": Understanding Rihanna's Absence during the 2019 Super Bowl Halftime Show through Speech Acts Theory
Julia C. Richmond
Part III: In Defense of Women's Rights
Chapter 9: Silence and Commercial Sex Work: Performing Silence as Strategy, Resistance, and the Articulation of Alternative Perspectives
Satarupa Dasgupta
Chapter 10: Under Their Eyes: The Visuality of Handmaids as Resistance in Transnational Women's Rights Protests
Annie Hui
Chapter 11: The Woman, Life, Freedom Movement: Social Media Videos of Women Cutting Hair and
Burning Hijabs and the Rhetoric of Silent Protest
Nune Grigoryan
Chapter 12: Red Card Qatar: Human Rights Protests at World Cup 2022
Megan O'Byrne
Part IV: Silent Protest and the Digital Landscape
Chapter 13: From Protest to Solidarity: How the Digital Era is Changing the Volume of Silence
Jessica L. Neu
Chapter 14: "Don't Mistake My Silence as Not Caring:" Discourses of Nonvoters on Twitter
Alison N. Novak
Chapter 15: Silent Protests in and for the AttentionSphere: A Rhetorical Methodology for Studying Attention
David Landes
Chapter 16: Silent Protest and Cruel Imitation in Hong Kong's "Umbrella Movement"
Dominic J. Manthey and Keren Wang
Index
About the Contributors
David W. Seitz
Part I: Silence, Presence, and Absence
Chapter 1: Speaking in Silence: Rhetoric, Ranciere, and the Blank Sign Protests of 2022
Michael Vicaro
Chapter 2: Vigils for Peace: Silent Presence as Political Action
D. Graham Burnett
Chapter 3: Embodying Absence: Silence and Death at ACT UP's 1992 Ashes Action
Jeffrey B. Nagel
Chapter 4: Silence as Political Engagement: Student-Led Silent Protests Advocating for LGBTQ+ Youth
Kevin R. Meyer and Stephen K. Hunt
Chapter 5: The Rhetoric of Silence as Embodiment: Georgia Prisoners' 2010 "Lockdown for Liberty"
Nick J. Sciullo
Part II: On Colin Kaepernick
Chapter 6: Embodying Resistance: Situating Kaepernick's Performative Symbolic Resistance as an Emic Perspective
Alicia K. Hatcher
Chapter 7: The Silence and the Fury: Colin Kaepernick, Athletic Protest, and Noisy Affects
Dafna Kaufman and Jaclyn Olson
Chapter 8: "I Just Couldn't Be a Sellout": Understanding Rihanna's Absence during the 2019 Super Bowl Halftime Show through Speech Acts Theory
Julia C. Richmond
Part III: In Defense of Women's Rights
Chapter 9: Silence and Commercial Sex Work: Performing Silence as Strategy, Resistance, and the Articulation of Alternative Perspectives
Satarupa Dasgupta
Chapter 10: Under Their Eyes: The Visuality of Handmaids as Resistance in Transnational Women's Rights Protests
Annie Hui
Chapter 11: The Woman, Life, Freedom Movement: Social Media Videos of Women Cutting Hair and
Burning Hijabs and the Rhetoric of Silent Protest
Nune Grigoryan
Chapter 12: Red Card Qatar: Human Rights Protests at World Cup 2022
Megan O'Byrne
Part IV: Silent Protest and the Digital Landscape
Chapter 13: From Protest to Solidarity: How the Digital Era is Changing the Volume of Silence
Jessica L. Neu
Chapter 14: "Don't Mistake My Silence as Not Caring:" Discourses of Nonvoters on Twitter
Alison N. Novak
Chapter 15: Silent Protests in and for the AttentionSphere: A Rhetorical Methodology for Studying Attention
David Landes
Chapter 16: Silent Protest and Cruel Imitation in Hong Kong's "Umbrella Movement"
Dominic J. Manthey and Keren Wang
Index
About the Contributors