Recognizing the Rhetorics of Feminist Action: Activist Literacy and Dr. Jill Stein’s 2012 Green Party Campaign

Recognizing the Rhetorics of Feminist Action: Activist Literacy and Dr. Jill Stein’s 2012 Green Party Campaign

Peitho Volume 18 Issue 2 Spring/Summer 2016

Author(s): Virginia Crisco

Abstract: Scholars such as Nancy Welch and Susan Jarratt argue that Neoliberalism shapes how everyday citizens are able to take action. Using what Jacquelyn Jones Royster and Gesa Kirsch call “social circulation,” I analyze how Dr. Jill Stein, the presidential candidate for the Green Party in 2012, used “whatever spaces are left” to challenge the dominant two party system, particularly in relation to the presidential debates. I argue that Stein demonstrates an activist literacy disposition that positions her to use the spaces, the literate and rhetorical means, and opportunities for storytelling to foster social action in our neoliberal climate.

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