8 Embodied Rhetorical Analysis: Attending to Our Bodies (Section Overview)
Yin Yuan
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to
- Write an embodied rhetorical analysis that considers how the body plays a role in meaning making within a particular text
Revisit: What is Embodied Rhetorics? (Insert link to Embodied Rhetorics chapter)
In the Write to Learn exercise below, reflect on the relationship between your body and your writing process.
Write to Learn: Your Body When Writing
A rhetorical analysis considers how a text functions as a form of communication. It asks the questions: who created the text, under what circumstances was it created, what is the author’s purpose in creating this text, which audiences is the author appealing to, and how those various factors shaped the way the text is composed.
What is frequently left out of these considerations, however, is the role of the body. As writing scholars A. Abby Knoblauch and Marie E. Moeller have noted in Bodies of Knowledge: Embodied Rhetorics in Theory and Practice, “knowledge and meaning are never disembodied—they are always made by somebody—and yet, as a field, we’ve often ignored the role of the body in knowledge production.”
Recall again the various ways each person’s body is marked by the intersecting experiences of gender, sexuality, race, class, age, and (dis)ability, to name just a few dimensions. Those embodied experiences affect both the way we make meaning as creators of texts and the way we receive meaning as audiences of those texts.
When you pay attention to the role of the body in rhetorical analysis, you are thus considering:
- How does the author’s embodied experiences shape the text that they produced?
- How does the body itself function as a text?
- How does the text try to influence and affect the bodies of its audiences?
An Example of Embodied Rhetoric
Video 8.1. Tammy Duckworth’s infant makes history in Senate chamber by CBS Mornings
In April 2018, Senator Tammy Duckworth made history by becoming the first US senator to be on the Senate floor with an infant. Watch the video above (view time is 2:57) and jot down responses to these questions:
- Who is the author? What are her different lived experiences?
- How would you describe Senator Tammy Duckworth’s body? How would you describe her baby’s body? How would you describe their bodies together?
- What kind of argument is Senator Duckworth making by attending the Senate session with her baby?
- What rhetorical strategies does she draw on with her own and her baby’s bodies?
- Who is/are the audience(s) that her own and her baby’s bodies might be addressing?
For an embodied rhetorical analysis of Tammy Duckworth’s historical act, see Ruth Osorio, “Rewriting Maternal Bodies: On the Senate Floor: Tammy Duckworth’s Embodied Rhetorics of Intersectional Motherhood,” in Bodies of Knowledge: Embodied Rhetorics in Theory and Practice.
Invitations to Read, Reflect, and Write
In this introduction to the section “Writing to Rhetorically Analyze,” we invite you to read some sample rhetorical analysis essays from other Saint Mary’s College students. We have also included some invitations to write shared by writing professors at Saint Mary’s College.
Student Writing
We would like to include student writing in this section. If you are interested in publishing your work, please fill out this form and submit a piece of your writing from your writing class. We will work with you to get it published.
Here are some rhetorical analyses written by students and published at other universities. We think you’ll find these mentor texts useful:
- Day and Night: A Comparative Analysis of Public Rhetoric on Abortion [New Tab] by Michael Moeny (Writer’s Statement [New Tab])
- The Rhetoric of Riot Grrrl Zines [New Tab] by Varalika Chari (Writer’s Statement [New Tab])
- Exploring the Rhetoric of Contemporary Black Female Rap within the Context of Social Discourse and Identity [New Tab] by Megan Felder (Writer’s Statement [New Tab])
Invitations to Write: An Embodied Rhetorical Analysis
The chapters in this section should prepare you for completing one of these summative writing assignments. These examples are assignments that we recommend.
Assignment Example #1
Rhetorically analyze a speech or a political action in which the body of the performer/orator plays a crucial role.
Assignment Example #2
Rhetorically analyze a physical space (a museum, for instance) and make an argument about how it positions the bodies of its visitors in order to accomplish a particular goal.
Assignment Example #3
Write a rhetorical analysis of an article (of your choosing) where an image of a physical body accompanies the text. Do note that it does not matter if you personally agree/disagree with the article’s argument and ideas; what matters is that you 1.) identify and describe the rhetorical elements of the text and its accompanying image and 2.) assess the text’s effectiveness at creating change through the inclusion of an image of the physical body.
Works Cited
Moeller, Marie E., and A. Abby Knoblauch. “Introduction: Bodies, Embodiments, and Embodied Rhetorics.” Bodies of Knowledge: Embodied Rhetorics in Theory and Practice. Utah State University Press, 2022. 3-20.
Osorio, Ruth. “Rewriting Maternal Bodies: On the Senate Floor: Tammy Duckworth’s Embodied Rhetorics of Intersectional Motherhood.” Bodies of Knowledge: Embodied Rhetorics in Theory and Practice. Utah State University Press, 2022. 143-160.
