Review: Thomas R. West. Signs of Struggle. The Rhetorical Politics of Cultural Difference.

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the review:

Thomas R. West's monograph seeks to provide rhetorical and pedagogical approaches to dealing with difference. His conception of cultural difference is based on Bhabha's (1990) distinction between "cultural diversity" in the multiculturalist sense and the notion of "cultural difference" characterised by the ambivalence originating from the relationship between coloniser and colonised. The title hints at West's attempt to synthesise insights from the fields of rhetoric and composition, cultural and critical theory, and postcolonial studies in order to situate them within a pedagogical framework. His overall concern is to show that culture as well as race, gender, and sexuality have to be understood as signs, or sites of agonistic political struggle and resistance affected by the impact of emotion.