1st Edition
Interrogating the Communicative Power of Whiteness
The field of communication offers the study of whiteness a focus on discourse which directs its attention to the everyday experiences of whiteness through regimes of truth, embodied acts, and the deconstruction of mediated texts. This book takes an intersectional approach to whiteness studies, researching whiteness through rhetorical analysis, qualitative research, performance studies, and interpretive research.
More specifically the chapters deconstruct the communicative power of whiteness in the context of the United States, but with discussion of the implications of this power internationally, by taking on relevant and current topics such as terrorism, post-colonial challenges, white fragility at the national level, the emergence of colorblind discourse as a pro-white discursive strategy, the relationship of people of color with and through whiteness, as well as multifaceted identities that intersect with whiteness, including religion, masculinity and femininity, social class, ability, and sexuality.
1. Introduction: Introducing 21st Century Whiteness or "Everything Old is New Again" (Dawn Marie D. McIntosh, Dreama G. Moon, and Thomas K. Nakayama) Part I: Intersectional Readings of Whiteness through Bodies of Color 2. Asian American Performance in White Supremacist Representation (Kent Ono and Alison Yeh Cheung) 3. Queerness as Strategic Whiteness: A Queer Asian American Critique of Peter Le (Shinsuke Eguchi) 4. Reverberations of Familial and Cultural Histories: Performances With and Against Whiteness (Charles LuLevitt and Bernadette Marie Calafell) Part II. Intersectional Readings of Whiteness through White Bodies 5. Black Women’s Intellectualism and Deconstructing Donald Trump’s Toxic White Masculinity (Rachel Alicia Griffin) 6. From White Ladies to White Trash Mamas: Performances of White Femininity (Dawn Marie D. McIntosh) 7. Digging In: White Trash, Trailer Trash, and the (im)Mobility of Whiteness (Tasha R. Dunn) 8. A Forgotten History of Eugenics: Reimagining Whiteness and Disability in the Case of Carrie Buck (Kathryn Hobson and Sophia B. Margulies) Part III: Intersectional Readings of Whiteness through Discursive Strategies 9. Monstrous Authenticity: Trump’s Whiteness (Rachel E. Dubrofsky) 10. Triumphal Whiteness and the Coloring of Terror in 21st Century Counter-Terrorist Rhetorics (Marouf Hasian and S. Marek Muller) 11. Nightmares of Whiteness: Dreams and Deportability in the Age of Trump (Lisa A. Flores and Logan Rae Gomez) 12. "The Colonial Jesus:" Deconstructing White Christianity (Gloria Nziba Pindi and Antonio Tomas De La Garza)
Biography
Dawn Marie D. McIntosh is an independent scholar located in Colorado, USA.
Dreama G. Moon is a professor of communication at California State University, San Marcos, USA
Thomas K. Nakayama is a professor of communication studies at Northeastern University, USA
"This book brings the study of whiteness up to the post-Obama era. It is essential reading for scholars who want to understand how whiteness operates as it moves through other categories such as gender, class, sexuality, and nationality. With writing by top scholars in the field, it gives us the tools to understand how power operates even when it seems to be invisible." --LeiLani Nishime, University of Washington, USA
