Author note: a + sign denotes an external link
Research Approach/Methodology
My research pulls from the field of feminist rhetoric, particularly the common theme within the field of acknowledging and situating the author or creator of certain types of knowledge in relation to that knowledge.
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Brittney C. Cooper+, within the prologue of Beyond Respectability, very clearly situates the author in terms of their knowledge through her idea of “embodied discourse." She uses this term to discuss the way in which people, particularly Black women scholars, write themselves or their bodies into their work, or also to discuss the way that the body affects the work. As Brittney Cooper herself says, the idea of embodied discourse “reminds us that we cannot study Black women’s theoretical production or tell Black women’s intellectual history without knowing something of their lives” (Cooper 9). Thus, Cooper, through her idea of embodied discourse, situates the author or creator as very close to the knowledge they create, and that who the author is and what their biases are very directly influences the knowledge they create.
Embodied discourse rests on the idea that knowledge comes from inside a person, and that once that knowledge is created, the person is still connected to that knowledge.
While Cooper very directly acknowledges the author or creator of knowledge through her idea of “embodied discourse,” other feminist rhetors do it as well, primarily by contesting the idea of “foundational knowledge.” These feminist rhetors argue that knowledge does not just “exist,” nor is it absolute or always “true.” Instead, they argue that knowledge is socially constructed by a person or by people who have inherent biases and privileges that affect what they “know” and what they “create.” So rather than seeing a piece of knowledge as just “correct” or just as “the way things are” or as “facts,” and not examining any further, feminist rhetors and the field of feminist rhetoric asks how those things came to be, how we know if they are correct, and how and who decided that they are so.
For example, Donna Haraway+ acknowledges the popularity of feminist rhetors contesting foundational knowledge in her text “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” when she says, “We, the feminists in the debates about science and technology, are the Reagan era’s ‘special-interest groups’ in the rarified realm of epistemology, where traditionally what can count as knowledge is policed by philosophers codifying cognitive canon law” (Haraway 575). What Haraway means in this quote is that feminists, particularly in science and technology but also in other fields, are devoted to and often stand alone in that they believe knowledge to be situated--to be influenced inherently by the person that created it, and therefore can't be absolute-- while others (particularly philosophers) continue to uphold the "law" of foundational knowledge.
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The house on the left represents foundational knowledge: though many believe this knowledge to be absolute, the "foundation" of that idea is cracked and problematic. The house on the right represents the opposite of foundational knowledge which is situational knowledge--knowledge that isn't absolute and is created by a person or by people.
The works of feminist rhetors like Haraway and Cooper are just two examples of how feminist rhetoric asks who gets to decide, and who does not get to decide, what counts as knowledge and what does not. They show that this knowledge does not stand alone and is not absolute— it was created by a person, or by people, who have inherent biases and privileges.
By examining who created foundational knowledge, one can uncover potential problematic points within that so-called “knowledge”. This approach, which is used so often in feminist rhetoric, can be applied to looking at logical fallacy theory—which has been historically situated as foundational knowledge—and can be used to show the ways in which logical fallacies are created and often identified by those with privilege to either directly or indirectly oppress others.