June 5: Rhetorical Sovereignty/Rhetorical Alliance

6/3/2014

The two readings are considered to be central to Indigenous rhetorics. In “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?” Scott Richard Lyons defines rhetorical sovereignty as “the inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires in this pursuit, to decide for themselves the goals, modes, styles, and languages of public discourse” (1130). Lyons provides an overview of why sovereignty matters to Native peoples (and “nation-peoples”) and how rhetorical sovereignty is necessary. In “Down by the River, or How Susan LaFlesche Picotte Can Teach Us about Alliance as a Practice of Sovereignty,” Malea D. Powell asks that we decolonize and do the “difficult intellectual work” (40) needed to create alliances and “work toward the survival of our shared communities” (42). In rhetorical alliance, “if my scholarly survival depends on you, then yours must also depend on me” (42). These concepts of rhetorical sovereignty and rhetorical alliance create a frame for our work in the field.

Lyons spends a significant part of his article discussing sovereignty and how that word/idea has been defined and implemented. He examines the distinct interpretations of nations, particularly in the way they are framed by Western and Indigenous ideologies. Initially to justify their own motives, Europeans needed to recognize Indian nations as sovereign, thus legitimizing land claims (451). As time went on, however, an erosion of Native sovereignty became evident. Linguistically, the terms shifted: nation to tribe, sovereign to ward, treaty to agreement all served the imperialism of the now United States (452-53). Still Native peoples persisted in their exercising sovereignty. Lyons points out that Natives define themselves a “a people” or “a group of human beings united together by history, language, culture, or some combination therein__a community joined in union for a common purpose: the survival and flourishing of the people itself” (454). This idea of a “nation-people,” who understand themselves as inextricably woven into culture, community and land, is distinct from the idea of the “nation-state,” or the way that sovereign Western nations define themselves. Imbedded in the idea of rhetorical sovereignty is the “we.” Lyons suggests the “prioritizing the study of American Indian rhetoric … in our graduate curricula and writing programs” (1143). Students can then examine their relationships to Native peoples (much like your map project).

Extending these ideas, Powell argues that we need to look beyond the narrow reliance on European frames that have shaped our current educational practices. We should not privilege one over the other, but rather allow for the importance of each (42). By using her own experiences (telling stories), she explains how she learned to theorize and writes, “human beings learn to produce texts through both theory and practice, by listening and doing; that ‘successful’ texts are collaborative and are meant for the community, not for the self’ and that through continued textural production the community…survives and gives thanks for its survival” (44). She continues her discussion through the example of Susan LaFlesche Picotte who exemplifies how to engage in rhetorical alliances. We can challenge dominant frameworks (even subversively in our classrooms) so that we work together in the sharing of all contributions.

10 Comments

Jocelyn Bettencourt

6/4/2014 03:05:05 am

After reading Scott Richard Lyons Rhetorical Sovereignty: What do American Indians Want from Writing? I learned that Indians are being treated much worse than I ever imagined. Call me naive, but before this year I had no idea the severity of the racism and abuse that indigenous people receive on a daily basis. I feel guilty for being so unaware of the tragedies of the suicides that happen daily because of racism and the violence and hatred the indigenous people receive. I was appalled after reading the first few pages of Lyons’ essay. When talking about how colonists changed the Native people because they wanted to make them like them. The heartbreaking story of the children in the classroom picking their white names was eye-opening. The fact the Indigenous people have had to rely on white goods because they have been stripped of everything.
Last semester I read Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and it really opened my eyes to the struggles that Native people face daily. It really opened my eyes to the lives of people that I never really knew about before. I obviously knew about the racism that African Americans and other races face daily, but I never had any examples in the news or anywhere else of Native Americans. This novel helped me realize that I have been hidden from all of the racism that happens daily. When reading Lyons’ essay I connected it to Ceremony in many ways. In Lyons’ essay when talking about his cousins whom both committed suicide I connected it to Tayo’s struggle to find his true self. Before the war Tayo was not liked at all then he joined the war and he was liked by so many. However, immediately after the war he was back to a regular Native American and the locals once again didn’t like him. During Lyons’ essay he writes:
“Two deaths that might be attributed to a kind of self-hatred experienced by many Indian youths today who find themselves trapped in colonial wreckage; poverty, violence, a racist dominant culture that hates and excludes them… ‘American Indians are victims of violent crime at a rate of more than double that of the rest of the population’. In seven out of ten of those episodes, the offender is non-Indian.” 461
I had no idea that the statistics for violence on Indians was that high. Reading this statistic astonished me. Yesterday in class when Professor Anderson talked about Natives having the highest suicide rate I was shocked. I was so taken back by the violence that stemmed from the colonial times.
Looking back at the assimilation and genocide that the colonists ensured on the Native Americans, I am disgusted to be an ancestor of them. During this time; when colonists were trying to change the Indians into Christians that were not “savage” was pitiful. The whites wanted to dominate the land and in doing so they began eliminating cultures: “the boarding school stands out as the ultimate symbol of white dominations, even genocide, through assimilation in the American Indian experience” (449). The fact that the colonists did this to Indians because they thought that they were that much better than the Indians is outrageous. Now that I am aware of the amount of racism and stereotypes around me I will be more careful to correct people and to be kind to everyone. I am happy that I was able to connect Ceremony with this article, but unfortunately the connection is a negative one.

Stephanie Vaz

6/4/2014 03:25:40 am

"Down by the River," by Malea D Powell was an interesting reading that touches base on how the rights of Native Americans are controlled by Whites. She incorporates the story of what could/should be said about the alliance and adaptation tactics used by La Flesche. As she quotes, "All cultures must change if they are to survive," (39) this supports how the rights of the Native Americans need to be changed to benefit their culture because the Whites still have most control over them, they have the say.
What I believe is a note-worthy quotation is when Powell writes, "But part of my argument here is to say that we must get beyond our efforts toward inclusion, not because inclusion is bad—the inclusion model has been useful in getting some conversations started about the centrality of race/ethnicity/gender/orientation/class to the study of rhetoric and the teaching of writing—but because cultures that do not change cannot survive" (40). This supports the idea that the Native American's culture must change in order to survive. Unfortunately she notes how the U.S. government has done repeated violations of faith with the Indians. For example, this reading states how education was not available for Indians, but they found ways to not only survive, but to successfully support their family and themselves, primarily off of what the earth has to offer. She states that the conclusion is that the history of the U.S. government's repeated violations of faith with the Indians thus convicts us as a nation, not only of having outraged the principles of justice, which are the basis of international law. Some more helpful changes that she mentions which I believe are good steps to positively changing things for the Native Americans are various organizations to benefit their rights, such as the Women's National Indian Association. These seem beneficial to help decrease the Native's common issues. Some that we discussed in class include: treaties, land, stereotypes, health, creation stories, murder, suicide, and assimilations. This reading demonstrates good points to taking steps with making positive changes in order for their culture to survive.

I enjoyed reading "Rhetorical Sovereignty," by Scott Richard Lyons. It clarified the definition and importance of sovereignty to the Natives. American Indians are making clear what they want from the comprised technology of writing. I found the story of activity in the classroom where the children had names of white people sewn to the back of their shirts was interesting and he explains this because it displays "the eradication of all traces of tribal identity and culture, replacing them with the commonplace knowledge and values of white civilization" (44). Lyons also mentions how it is an example of a forced replacement of one identity to another which can be compared to how the Indians were forced to convert to Christianity in order to be accepted by the English. What Indians want most from writing is Rhetorical Sovereignty. In other words, "for indigenous people everywhere, sovereignty is an ideal principle, the beacon by which we seek the paths to agency, power, and community renewal" (499). This allows them to set goals and make changes like the "down by the River" reading suggested because it will allow the culture to survive. Rhetorical imperialism is shown when he describes how the United States could limit the Cherokee sovereignty simply because they were the United States, I found this unfair for them because they are a much smaller population so they get overpowered so easily. Indians represent themselves as a "people" which demonstrates that they are united by history, language, and culture. What Lyons says is needed is the power to self govern and the affirmation of people-hood. This reading was very informative and explains how sovereignty is important for its applicability to legal, cultural, intellectual aspects, materials and more.

Angela Skrabec

6/4/2014 07:58:12 am

Malea Powell’s block quote from Susan Power that begins “Native peoples, and their stories and histories are not a social studies unit of an interesting sub-category” speaks volumes to my summer undergraduate research project (45). The whole basis of my project is to improve my scholarly comprehension of the First Encounters between Native Americans and Europeans in the New World in order to create a selection of quality children’s literature to be shared in the elementary school classroom. This quote in a way sums up the purpose for completing my research. American elementary schools are educating the youth from a narrow perspective, driven by historical accounts and stereotypes, of Native Americans. I remember elementary school history lessons where we all dressed up as ‘Pilgrims and Indians” for a Thanksgiving feast and we made feathered headbands with our created Indian names. The stereotypes were perpetuated in my generation and they continue to have a presence in today’s elementary classrooms. Like Powell and Power, I want to break away from the image of Native Americans being “the lost, the dead, always those who are acted upon” in favor of a realistic, contemporary portrayal of Native Americans. I want my future students to grasp that Native Americans are not people of the past that can only be found in a history book, but they are an active ethnic group who are very much alive in today’s communities. The literature that I share with my future students will give them an authentic, well-rounded comprehension of how Native Americans contributed to United States in the past and in the present. Susan Power’s quote, included in Powell’s article, motivates me to become a better teacher. I sincerely hope that this course and its readings make a lasting impression on my future career as an educator.
“Rhetorical Sovereignty” introduced me to a new term that has/will have great significance as I learn, read, and engage with materials throughout the course. Lyons defines Rhetorical sovereignty as “the inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires in this pursuit, to decide for themselves the goals, modes, styles, and languages of public discourse” (449-50). My understanding of this term in relation to this course is the empowerment of Native Americans to accept the task of creating and shaping a body of literature (written as well as non-written) which serves their communities wishes as well as depicts a positive image of each various culture and tribe within this ethnic category. It is refreshing to hear a term that gives executive power to Native Americans in order that they may define how the rest of the world sees them. Time and time again Anglo-Americans publish one-sided opinions of events concerning both Native Americans and Anglo-Americans. The Native perspective is often neglected, even when their perspective would be of the most value, because Anglo-Americans view themselves as superior while the Indigenous people are seen as insignificant. Rhetorical sovereignty changes all this and places Native Americans in a position of power where they can take control of their cultural rhetoric. This term has relevance when applied to the reading on “Rhetorical Powwows” because it shows the importance of the making rhetoric in addition to the writing rhetoric. Under rhetorical sovereignty, Native Americans have the authority to include the making of wampum and basket weaving alongside poetry, oral stories, and written narratives as rhetorical forms of their culture. As the course progresses, we will be able to participate in the making portion of Native American rhetorical sovereignty in order to gain a perspective of both the written rhetoric and the making rhetoric which represent Indigenous culture.

Jackie Henry

6/4/2014 10:16:36 pm

“Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want From Writing” was very, very eye opening for me. I had always just simply assumed that Native people adapted more and more of the Americana lifestyle as time went on- but I was so wrong. Rather than them changing in an effort to fit it, the change was indisputably forced, and that is what I find to be so disturbing. It’s not even just the fact that they forced Native American’s to change, it’s that they literally stripped them of their identity and instead labeled them with a words (names) that were so far from being relevant to those people. It’s almost as if indigenous people were of no value to [white] society.
The article then goes on to discuss the additional erasure of Native American existence, yet this time it’s in regards to education and what is going to be taught to those attending school. Lyons states, “the eradication of all traces of tribal identity and culture, replacing them with the commonplace knowledge and values of white civilization” (449); in other words, a statement of pure ignorance is potentially about to be implemented.
Powell’s, “Down by the River, or How Susan La Flesche Picotte Can Teach Us about Alliance as a Practice of Survivance” was another interesting read. It connected back to Rhetorical Sovereignty in that it stresses the impact that [white] Europeans have on shaping the way that Native American history is to be represented in modern day institutions. Truthfully, my personal belief is that Native people and their ancestors should be the ones that decide what sort of teachings to instill within school. These people were affected by everything that we’re teaching; these people are the one’s that experienced everything first hand. Why wouldn’t we have our most accurate sources be the ones that determine what’s being taught? It’s none of our business. We can be the ones to help relay the information to student absolutely, but we should not be the ones to make the initial decisions. It’s not our place, and enough of their crucial history has been cut out to begin with.

Katie Kirkpatrick

6/5/2014 01:31:37 am

Rhetorical Sovereignty by Richard Lyons was a very eye-opening piece. The way he starts off with the young Indian boys being stripped of their identities really sets the tone for the rest of his ideas. Lyons discusses what rhetorical sovereignty is by defining it as, “the inherent right and ability of people to determine their own communicative needs and desires” (450). This definition leads into the discussion about how European men would sign treaties with the Indians about the land. Since the European men were recognizing the Indians to have sovereignty, they used treaties against them. A line that really struck me about this section was “You can’t give up what you don’t own, after all; nor can you buy what’s already yours” (451). The Indians see the treaties as recognition of power over the land. However, England uses the treaties to slowly gain dominance over the land. However, Indians remained true to their cause of keeping their culture alive by representing themselves as a people; which can be defined as “a group of human beings united together by history, language, culture or some combination therein” (454). When a group shares a language with another they are united as a people. However, this did not stop the racism and prejudice against the Native Americans and I had no idea that the racism was so bad. I also didn’t know that this caused a lot of tribes to go extinct. In the past 100 years, Brazil lost 90 tribes and these numbers will only increase as time goes on. It must be a terrible feeling to know that your tribe could cease to exist in the future. I know I have never felt anything like that because the English language and American culture have never been in danger of dying out.
Down by the River, or How Susan La Flesche Piccote Can Teach Us about Alliance as a Practice of Survivance by Malea D. Powell is a great piece that shows the injustice that America has done to the Native Americans and how the schools should incorporate Native American literature into their curriculums. American schools look at teaching about Native Americans in a way that makes it seem less important. After elementary school has done a great job of offering nothing but stereotypes and false histories about the Native Americans, students are hardly ever exposed to Native Americans ever again. Powell quotes another woman, Susan Power, who says “Native peoples, and their stories and histories are not a social studies unit of an interesting sub-category” (45). Native Americans are hardly ever incorporated effectively into schools. This relates to the last article about sovereignty because the government is controlling how the history of the Indians is portrayed to young minds of American students. Still the government is enforcing their control over the Indians, not only by giving them little funding for their reservations, but also by altering perspectives of American citizens.

Rebekka Eiben

6/5/2014 01:49:30 am

Both articles, “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?” by Scott Richard Lyons and “Down by the River, or How Susan LaFlesche Picotte Can Teach Us about Alliance as a Practice of Sovereignty” by Malea D. Powell, explore the everlasting struggle of communication between native people and the English. From reading these it is clear that there is still a lot of disconnection between both cultures and that we need to continually work on integration. Both articles talk about how we spend so much time trying to make Indians understand our culture and assimilate to us, when we should be trying to understand and integrate their culture with ours.
Powell writes beautiful that we “need a new language, one that doesn’t convince us of our unutterable and ongoing differences, one that doesn’t force us to see one another as competitors” (41). Powell then goes on to explain that we need to instead find a language that allows us to have “respectful and reciprocal relationships that acknowledge the degree to which we need one another (have needed one another) in order to survive and flourish” (41). If we do not learn to work with one another and respect one another’s cultures then we are not going to survive. Our ability to try and understand differences has become better over the years but there is still a gap between our understandings of one another. Since we spent so much time thinking in a colonial mindset even when we try and understand another culture, we do not do it appropriately. Lyons explores this idea in his article when he explains what Indians want from writing and language. Lyons mentions the things that Indians do not want from writing by listing things such as: “stereotypes, cultural appropriation, exclusion, ignorance, irrelevance, rhetorical imperialism” (462). He then goes on to explain that the main thing that native people want from writing is the recognition of their own language, definitions, needs and desires. Indians have so many different languages and variations of languages that are rarely used now because of the forced assimilation to American culture. Lyons ends his essay beautifully by stating: “The ability to speak both---indeed, to speak at all---is the right and the theory and the practice and the poetry of rhetorical sovereignty. Ningiigid, nindinawe: I speak, I speak like the people with whom I live” (466-67). We need to be able to be more aware of the different cultures around us and invitingly incorporate them into our everyday lives, education, and politics.
Through thinking about these things it has become clear to me that I want to try very hard to incorporate appropriate and diverse literature into my elementary classroom. Too many elementary classrooms do not focus on trying to be diverse; this is still a problem even though many people are more aware of it. It is important to correctly portray cultures as they really are and not to illustrate them in the form of their stereotypes. As we were talking about in class, classrooms are still throwing “Thanksgiving” parties and having children dress up in Indian or Pilgrim attire, which is so inaccurate and insensitive. I want to incorporate traditional Indian literature, as well as other cultures, into my everyday teaching in the elementary classroom to hopefully broaden the student’s understanding and view on these cultures. Every teacher should be made to do this because it is what will help create more open-minded individuals, if we help to create more open-minded individuals then when they become adults it will not be so hard for them to deal with differences in the world. I believe that teaching is not only about preparing children academically, but also preparing them for the real world and all that comes with it.

Jordan Berry

6/5/2014 01:50:42 am

Scott Richard Lyons’ “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?” is an eye-opening article that addresses the treatment of Native Americans in the United States court system and the writing education needed to ensure battles in the court will be won, instead of lost. The article starts with an account at a boarding school where Indians were sent to be educated to read and write, but mostly educated on how to embrace and become white and banish their Indian side. Lyons writes, “More horrific than most scenes of writing, however, the boarding school stands out as the ultimate symbol of white domination, even genocide, through as simulation in the American Indian experience” (449). At the boarding schools the children were forced to pick out white names that were written on the board of the school. Once assigned, the names were sewn into their clothes as a way to always remind them they were not longer allowed to follow their native practices which included that names their parents gave them when they were born.

Lyons also talks about sovereignty in his article. He talks about the European monarchy style which allowed only one person to rule and compares it to the Native style. Natives took all their people’s opinion into consideration when making a decision. They had more of a focus on community development, an ideal the United States could greatly benefit from if they followed this example. He also talks about how in the beginning European colonists needed to recognize the Natives as a sovereign but as time went on this changed, especially after the Revolutionary War. He reflects how the white immigrants took advantage of the Native Americans in the court system because they could not read or write.

As more and more American Indians were sent to boarding schools and learned how to read and write, the Natives took advantage of this aide and were able to finally fight back. American laws have often ignored the treaties they have made with Natives. Natives were told what the treaty meant and thinking it was fair would go along with it. However, because they were not able to read and therefore analyze the document, they could be told completely false information about it and sign something that was entirely different from what they were originally told. However, once they learned how to read and write, trials like “the federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s disrecognition of the Washington Redskins trademark” (466) was won.

Lyons reflects that “Rhetorical sovereignty is the inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires in this pursuit, to decide for themselves the goals, modes, styles, and languages of public discourse” (449-500). Through reading and writing Native American were able to study legal documents and learn the loopholes of them. It is also important because “rhetorical sovereignty [allows] Indians to have some say about the nature of their textual representations.” They now have less of a chance of being cheated and taken advantage of.

Tabitha Monteiro

6/5/2014 02:42:23 am

Native Rhetoric
These two articles by Malea D. Powell and Scott Richard Lyons discuss the importance of Native American writing and their relation to the history of Native Americans. They place an emphasis on the writings of Native Americans as a means to keeping the people and the culture around. Without these stories being written down and preserved it is possible that the Native people will be forgotten. While their oral tradition is very important to them, having some of their stories written down will only enhance them and others in understanding the traditions of Native Americans.
Powell’s article focuses on coming together as a means of survival. That whole theory is so incredibly intriguing to me. I feel in today’s culture we focus so much on being different and being set apart from others that we no longer relate to anyone anymore and how that unity gives us strength. She says, “Maybe we can learn to take hold of one another and emerge at the beginning of a new story about ourselves, not a “prime” narrative held together by the sameness of our beliefs, but a gathering of narratives.” Here she’s saying that it’s not that they should combine everyone’s story and make it one, but instead to combine them to make it whole. Every story plays a part in their history.
In Lyons article, he touches upon two stories that really interested me. The first is the short passage by Robert Aitken and the other is the short story about Luther Standing Bear at the Carlisle Indian School. The passage by Aitken says, “The student asked, “How can Essential Nature be destroyed?” Coyote said, “With an eraser.” It makes me think how easily something that a Native American wrote could have been tampered with or even discarded of with the use of an eraser. It links to the story of Luther Standing Bear in the sense that in taking on a new white name it in a way takes away their identity, erases their Indian culture from their past. Lyons says, “The ability to speak both-indeed, to speak at all-is the right and the theory and the practice and the poetry of rhetorical sovereignty.” Being familiar with both their native language as well as the language of the white man gives the Natives a leg-up on them. They are able to relay their history and their stories to the white people that don’t know much about them or know a false history of the Native people.
I really enjoyed the two articles. It’s eye-opening when you hear about how the Native Americans were treated on the land that was their own by invaders. I also agree with the notion that these stories need to be written down. It is a part of our history whether we like it or not; it’s reality that should not just be thrown aside because it makes someone else look bad.

Devon DiMartino

6/5/2014 03:12:47 am

In Scott Richard Lyons article, a quote by Standing Bear stating, “No longer should the Indian be dehumanized in order to make material for lurid and cheap fiction to embellish street-stands… Rather a fair and correct history of the native American should be incorporated in the curriculum of the public school” (466). As a child, I was exposed to the “European” history of our nation. I vividly remember making Indian head dresses and Pilgrim hats and I was somewhat lead to believe that Indians had simply gone extinct. This of course is not at all true.
Malea D. Powell makes a great point when she writes,

If we are to be allies we must share some understanding of one another’s beliefs. We don’t have to believe one another’s beliefs, but we do have to acknowledge their importance, understand them as real, and respect/honor them in our dealings with one another. (42)

However, how are students supposed to be able to respect the Indian’s beliefs if they are under the impression that they are extinct and are never really explained what their beliefs were? Lyon’s inclusion of Standing Bear’s story as a child when he was expected to take a white mans name is incredibly powerful for the reader. I can not imagine being told that I need to change my name and accept a history that he knew was missing details of his people’s success. Lyon’s wrote how,

Standing bear and others would recall multiple forms of Indian resistance, from torching schools to running away to counting coup on the Western text, the duplicitous interrelationships between writing, violence, and colonization developed during the nineteenth-century (449)

This set into motion the distrust of the written word in English (449), because they knew this history was altered. Powell does a fantastic job of including the horrible term of “the Indian problem” or “the Indian question” (44) which lead also to “theory of the savage” (44). These terms make the student believe that the Indian’s were the ones falsifying the actions that took place during this time and that they were a “problem” or “question” to creating the United States, as we now know it today. Teachers need to teach their students a more exact history in order “to awaken the conscience of America to the flagrant wrongs that had been perpetrated upon the Indians” (Powell 46).

If students became aware of the “power imbalances between whites and Indians” (Lyons 453) during this time when history was documented, they would be more aware of the fact that parts of our history are excluded. It is a teacher’s job not to rewrite our history, but simply to include the Indian side of the story.

Kate Pallis

6/9/2014 05:37:06 am

In the article by Scott Richard Lyons “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What do American Indians Want from Writing?” it is expressed that rhetorical imperialism resulted in the elimination of Native American culture as well as the people. Lyons shares a story about a boy who has to choose a white name in a classroom, he expresses that it is that haunting moment where he looks back to his peers in a plea of confusion that can be considered allegorical for the progression of Native American history is reference to the assimilation process. Lyons proposes that Sovereignty is also rhetorical, and that it is “The inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires.”(450) Power, in this case is based on the capability that comes with recognition. In the past American Indians have had a contradictory stance in the recognition of political, economical and spiritual endeavors; this had rendered them powerless amongst colonizing forces.
Malea D Powell delineates the middle ground between Indianess and Whiteness that is necessary for the survival of American Indians in her article “Down By the River.” In doing so Powell extracts the definitive qualities of empirical rhetoric and juxtaposes them with the attributes of agrarian Indian rhetoric to expose the foundation for the interactions between the two populations of people.
Powell explains that there is not one pure authority that constitutes the definition of history and uses Susan La Flesche’s unbiased approach to shed light on the difference between ignoring history and maintaining a community. One must view history without a guilt ridden lens, but rather embrace the opportunity to observe the complexities of various past generations; One must be willing to use historical experiences to see how people have confronted the same problems we face. Powell defines rhetoric as an art “in which meaning is made and action produced” ultimately linking practice to theory. She proposes a pedagogical future, in which writings of minorities are quintessential to the learning process, as well as the

June 5: Rhetorical Sovereignty/Rhetorical Alliance

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