Crafting cosmopolitan nationalism: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s rhetorical leadership

Hussle and Motivate: An Afrocentric Understanding of Constitutive Rhetoric Toward Economic Empowerment in Nipsey Hussle’s Victory Lap Album

“…I utilize these songs as case studies to explore how Nipsey rhetorically empowers his listeners to embrace an identity toward economic and financial freedom. Further, this essay is interested in interrogating the ontological function of the “rhetoric of economic empowerment.” I define the rhetoric of economic empowerment as an active call to symbolically improve or grant access to economic freedom and liberation to establish an individual’s or community’s citizenship and agency (Bradfield, 2010; Fisher, 2016; Jones, 2017; Leaven, 2020; Stillion Southard, 2017). To clarify, rhetorical analysis (or criticism) is a “qualitative research method that is designed for the systematic investigation and explanation of symbolic acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes” (Foss, 2017, p. 6).…”

The centennial of (white) woman suffrage: Gender and democratic engagement at the intersections

“…25 Stillion Southard theorizes "cosmopolitan citizenship" in her assessment of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, suggesting citizenship practices that "highlight how and through what means people can relate to one another in an increasingly transnational world." 26 Chávez presents a number of competing definitions of citizenship in her aforementioned contribution to QJS's centennial issue, including Aihwa Ong's notion of "cultural citizenship," but ultimately she resists citizenship altogether as a "quintessential example" of a "kind of inclusionary process that serves not to transform structures, but to enhance them." 27 Vincent N. Pham focuses more narrowly on the "racial matters of citizenship," urging rhetoric scholars to "track and name the shifty ways [racism] reinscribes a preferred mode of national belonging that foregrounds white supremacy as the norm."…”