Article
The Event That We Are: Ontology, Rhetorical Agency, and Alain Badiou
Philosophy & Rhetoric
(2016)
Abstract
As scholars have recently suggested, rhetoric has long been remiss when it comes to nondiscursive concerns beyond its traditional purview. While many have sought to broaden rhetoric's scope, no one has yet undertaken a nondiscursive rhetorical investigation of social change in an effort to reconcile the tension between a critique of agency and the perception of human responsibility. This article undertakes such a critique through Alain Badiou's concept of the event, a concept that, I contend, offers the discipline a means of rethinking the opposition between relativism and flat ontology. Analyzing the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi through the frame of the event, I regard Bouazizi's act as an ontic occurrence exerting influence over protestors across the Arab world while demanding collective recognition to emerge as an event.
Keywords
- ontology,
- agency,
- Alain Badiou,
- event,
- object-oriented rhetoric,
- Arab Spring
Disciplines
Publication Date
August, 2016
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.49.3.0254
Citation Information
James Rushing Daniel. "The Event That We Are: Ontology, Rhetorical Agency, and Alain Badiou" Philosophy & Rhetoric Vol. 49 Iss. 3 (2016) p. 254 - 276 ISSN: 1527-2079 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/james-daniel1/4/