Description
Malcolm X, like any orator, did not fashion his discourse in a vacuum but worked within and modified modes fashioned by his predecessors. Malcolm X: Inventing Radical Judgement begins by exploring the interpretive strategies presented in key texts from the history of African American protest, establishing a spectrum against which Malcolm's oratory can be assessed. Then the texts of speeches that Malcolm delivered while he was a minister for the Nation of Islam and of speeches and statements he made after he left the Nation are analyzed to discern the strategies of interpretation and judgement that he enacted and fostered in his audiences. Finally, this radical judgement, presented in and through Malcolm's public discourse, is re-contextualized by using three disparate theoretical approaches. The purpose of this triangulation is not to contain the rhetoric of Malcolm X within the limitations of these vocabularies, but rather to show that the changing potential of Malcolm's rhetoric lies, in part, in its iconoclastic refusal to be constrained by definitive boundaries.
Book Information
ISBN 9780870138034
Author Robert E. Terrill
Format Paperback
Page Count 255
Imprint Michigan State University Press
Publisher Michigan State University Press