Soapbox Rebellion, a new critical history of the free speech fights of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), illustrates how the lively and colorful soapbox culture of the “Wobblies” generated novel forms of class struggle. From 1909 to 1916, thousands of IWW members engaged in dozens of fights for freedom of speech throughout the American West. The volatile spread and circulation of hobo agitation during these fights amounted to nothing less than a soapbox rebellion in which public speech became the principal site of the struggle of the few to exploit the many. While the fights were not always successful, they did produce a novel form of fluid union organization that offers historians, labor activists, and social movement scholars a window into an alternative approach to what it means to belong to a union. Matthew May coins the phrase “Hobo Orator Union” to characterize these collectives. Soapbox Rebellion highlights the methodological obstacles to recovering a workers’ history of public address; closely analyzes the impact of hobo oratorical performances; and discusses the implications of the Wobblies’ free speech fights for understanding grassroots resistance and class struggle today—in an era of the decline of the institutional business union model and workplace contractualism.

2022 International Labor History Association Book of the Year A dramatic, deeply researched account of how legal repression and vigilantism brought down the Wobblies—and how the destruction of their union haunts us to this day. In 1917, the Industrial Workers of the World was rapidly gaining strength and members. Within a decade, this radical union was effectively destroyed, the victim of the most remarkable campaign of legal repression and vigilantism in American history. Under the Iron Heel is the first comprehensive account of this campaign. Founded in 1905, the IWW offered to the millions of workers aggrieved by industrial capitalism the promise of a better world. But its growth, coinciding with World War I and the Russian Revolution and driven by uncompromising militancy, was seen by powerful capitalists and government officials as an existential threat that had to be eliminated. In Under the Iron Heel, Ahmed White documents the torrent of legal persecution and extralegal, sometimes lethal violence that shattered the IWW. In so doing, he reveals the remarkable courage of those who faced this campaign, lays bare the origins of the profoundly unequal and conflicted nation we know today, and uncovers disturbing truths about the law, political repression, and the limits of free speech and association in class society.

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Science provides a state-of-the-art volume on the language of scientific processes and communications. This book offers comprehensive coverage of socio-cultural approaches to science, as well as analysing new theoretical developments and incorporating discussions about future directions within the field. Featuring original contributions from an international range of renowned scholars, as well as academics at the forefront of innovative research, this handbook: identifies common objects of inquiry across the areas of rhetoric, sociolinguistics, communication studies, science and technology studies, and public understanding of science; covers the four key themes of power, pedagogy, public engagement, and materiality in relation to the study of scientific language and its development; uses qualitative and quantitative approaches to demonstrate how humanities and social science scholars can go about studying science; details the meaning and purpose of socio-cultural approaches to science, including the impact of new media technologies; analyses the history of the field and how it positions itself in relation to other areas of study. Ushering the study of language and science toward a more interdisciplinary, diverse, communal and ecological future, The Routledge Handbook of Language and Science is an essential reference for anyone with an interest in this area.

This book tells the story of a group of women affiliated with the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) who used a variety of rhetorical resources to build credibility and transform the party into a vibrant dwelling place for feminist discourse and activism during a conservative period. It evidences Communist women’s significant and creative resistance to Cold War society and its visions of appropriate, “normal” womanhood alongside their pleas for class and race consciousness in a country that took for granted the white, middle-class aspirations of citizens. Drawing on Marxist theory, transnational coalitions, and Cold War culture, Communist women’s rhetorical strategies were incredibly powerful, and this book provides insight into how they catalyzed changes in a rigid political movement by establishing a platform for their radical ideals.

James Mallery explores the implications of such social constructs as gender, race, and class for the development of San Francisco from the gold rush through World War I.

Between 1936 and 1939, the Spanish Civil War showcased anarchism to the world. News of the revolution in Spain energised a moribund international anarchist movement, and activists from across the globe flocked to Spain to fight against fascism and build the revolution behind the front lines. Those that stayed at home set up groups and newspapers to send money, weapons and solidarity to their Spanish comrades. This book charts this little-known phenomenon through a transnational case study of anarchists from Britain, Ireland and the United States, using a thematic approach to place their efforts in the wider context of the civil war, the anarchist movement and the international left.

Recent and ongoing "new materialisms" scholarship seeks to fundamentally reshape the humanities and their relationship with the sciences. While this work comprises multiple and varied currents, one of the most important, yet whose distinctive merits are arguably often underappreciated, is that influenced by the theoretical physicist and feminist philosopher Karen Barad. The first volume devoted to bringing Barad’s work into conversation with the disciplines of rhetoric and communication studies, this collection organizes that conversation primarily around her notion of "entanglement", which encourages an understanding of meaning as inherently performative, material, and ecological. In doing so, the essays in this collection variously approach rhetoric as a "figure of entanglement" in ways that contribute to and enrich both rhetoric and Barad’s theorizing. Topics range from politics to breast cancer, genealogy, the trope of academic "turns," Marx’s notion of exchange, and the "prehistoric" emergence of human consciousness. With a new foreword by the editors and afterword by Laurie E. Gries, this collection is otherwise reprinted from the 2016 "Figures of Entanglement" special issue of the journal Review of Communication.

A clear and concise A-to-Z of keywords that echo our current human rights crisis As millions are forced to leave their nations of origin as a result of political, economic, and environmental peril, rising racism and xenophobia have led to increasingly harsh policies. A mass-mediated political circus obscures both histories of migration and longstanding definitions of words for people on the move, fomenting widespread linguistic confusion. Under this circus tent, there is no regard for history, legal advocacy, or jurisprudence. Yet in a world where the differences between “undocumented migrant” and “asylum seeker” can mean life or death, words have weighty consequences. A timely antidote to this circus, A is for Asylum Seeker reframes key words that describe people on the move. Written to correct the de-meaning of terms by rhetoric and policies based on dehumanization and profitable incarceration, this glossary provides an intersectional and historically grounded consideration of the words deployed in enflamed debate. Skipping some letters of the alphabet while repeating others, thirty terms cover everything from Asylum-seeker to Zero Tolerance Policy. Each entry begins with a contemporary or historical story for illustration and then proceeds to discuss the language politics of the word. The book balances terms affected by current political debates—such as “migrant,” “refugee,” and “illegal alien”—and terms that offer historical context to these controversies, such as “fugitive,” “unhoused,” and “vagrant.” Rendered in both English and Spanish, this book offers a unique perspective on the journeys, histories, challenges, and aspirations of people on the move. Enhancing the book’s utility as an educational and organizing resource, the author provides a list of works for further reading as well as a directory of immigration-advocacy organizations throughout the United States. ***** Un claro y breve abecedario de palabras clave que hacen eco en nuestra crisis humanitaria presente. Mientras millones son forzados de huir de sus naciones de origen debido a peligro político, económico, y ecológico, racismo y xenofobia han llevado a políticas más y más severas. Un circo político en los medios oculta a ambas las historias de inmigración y las definiciones antiguas de palabras para personas en movimiento, creando confusión lingüística amplia. Bajo esta carpa de circo, no hay consideración para historia, defensa legal, o jurisprudencia. Pero en un mundo donde las diferencias entre “migrante indocumentade” y “solicitante de asilo” pueden ser la diferencia entre vida y muerte, palabras tienen consecuencias graves. Un antídoto oportuno a este circo, A de Asilo re-enmarca palabras claves que describen a personas en movimiento. Escrito para corregir la de-significación de términos por retórica y políticas basadas en deshumanización y encarcelación lucrosa, este glosario provee una consideración interseccional e histórica de las palabras usadas en debate inflamado. Brincando a unas letras del alfabeto mientras repite a otras, treinta términos cubren todo desde Asilo a Tolerancia Cero. Cada artículo empieza con una historia contemporánea u histórica para ilustrar, y después discute la política alrededor de la palabra. El libro balancea términos impactados por debates políticos contemporáneos—como “migrante,” “refugiado” y “extranjero ilegal”—y términos que ofrecen contexto histórico a estas controversias, como “fugitivo” “sin casa” y “vagante.” Escrito en inglés y español, este libro ofrece una perspectiva única en las jornadas, historias, retos, y aspiraciones de personas en movimiento. Aumentando la utilidad del libro como un recurso educacional y organizacional, la autora provee una lista de obras para más lectura, igual que un directorio de organizaciones de defensa de inmigrantes a través de los Estados Unidos.

The essays in this volume address the question: what does it mean to understand the contemporary moment in light of the 1930s? In the aftermath of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and facing a dramatic rise of right wing, authoritarian politics across the globe, the events of the 1930s have acquired a renewed relevance. Contributions from a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars address the relationship between these historical moments in various geographical contexts, from Asia-Pacific to Europe to the Americas, while probing an array of thematic questions—the meaning of populism and fascism, the contradictions of constitutional liberalism and “militant democracy,” long cycles and crisis tendencies in capitalism, the gendering and racialization of right wing movements, and the cultural and class politics of emancipatory struggles. Uncovering continuity as well as change and repetition in the midst of transition, Back to the 30s? enriches our ability to use the past to evaluate the challenges, dangers, and promises of the present.

This collection provides an accessible yet rigorous survey of the rhetorical study of historical and contemporary social movements and promotes the study of relations between strategy, symbolic action, and social assemblage. Offering a comprehensive collection of the latest research in the field, The Rhetoric of Social Movements: Networks, Power, and New Media suggests a framework for the study of social movements grounded in a methodology of "slow inquiry" and the interconnectedness of these imminent phenomena. Chapters address the rhetorical tactics that social movements use to gain attention and challenge power; the centrality of traditional and new media in social movements; the operations of power in movement organization, leadership, and local and global networking; and emerging contents and environments for social movements in the twenty-first century. Each chapter is framed by case studies (drawn from movements across the world, ranging from Black Lives Matter and Occupy to Greek anarchism and indigenous land protests) that ground conceptual characteristics of social movements in their continuously unfolding reality, furnishing readers with both practical and theoretical insights. The Rhetoric of Social Movements will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of rhetoric, communication, media studies, cultural studies, social protest and activism, and political science.