Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas

Adriana Angel is Associate Professor of Communication at Universidad de la Sabana, Colombia. Michael L. Butterworth is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Nancy R. Gomez is Professor of Communication at Universidad del Norte, Colombia.

"Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas offers a valuable lesson. When contending with the Americas, rhetoric, and/or democracy, an investigation of the Idea of the Americas is fundamental to an understanding of what haunts us in the present, essential to the projects of unsettling the 'settler' as a system, and consubstantial for rethinking rhetoric [and] democracy." -Romeo Garcia, The Quarterly Journal of Speech "With an impressive diversity of both topics and authors, Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas invites readers to consider the structural determinants as well as living habits of twenty-first-century politics. Angel, Butterworth, and Gomez demonstrate leadership in intellectual and disciplinary ways, bringing scholars together and suggesting with notable hope the future of international collaborations. This rich and deeply grounded collection courageously directs attention to the racial and class-based struggles that continue to challenge the Americas." -E. Johanna Hartelius, editor of The Rhetorics of US Immigration: Identity, Community, Otherness "Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas is a shining example of why we need to think about god-concepts like democracy across space and time through transnational analysis. Rather than assume the naturalness of the nation-state borders in South, Central, and North America, the authors denaturalize them, telling the stories of their emergence and of how the presence of borders and the relationalities between these borders now shapes what democracy looks like and can be." -Sara McKinnon, author of Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics