“A deftly orchestrated piece of rhetoric in its own right, Keepin’ It Hushed riffs from classical philosophy and rhetoric to a sampling of pop culture genres, from canonical to non-canonical literature of the Western, African, and African American traditions. Few writers are able to balance the craft of writing with a comprehensive treatment of ideas the way Nunley does.”
Keepin' It Hushed
The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric
Vorris L. Nunley
Paper - 9780814333488
Price: $24.95s
Published 2011
Size: 6 x 9, Pages: 208
Subjects: Africana Studies: Language and Culture
Series: African American Life Series
Tweet
Description
Nunley’s introduction connects African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric (AAHHR) to everyday considerations of what may or may not be spoken in public and how African American speakers manage numerous hidden transcripts. In the first three chapters, Nunley charts different iterations of hush harbors and their function in the context of residual and emergent rhetorical traditions. He investigates public sphere theory and its application (and misapplication) to black civil society and hush harbors and connects AAHHR to nommo, the power of the word. In chapters 4 and 5, Nunley examines the ubiquity of the hush harbor trope in African American culture and considers barbershops as pedagogical sites, using literature, poetry, philosophy, and film to make his case. In chapter 6, he analyzes the Barbershop movie in detail, arguing that the movie’s commodified, neoliberal version of AAHHR did not represent a hush harbor, although that was ostensibly the aim.
Keepin’ It Hushed concludes with a presentation of a hush harbor pedagogy in chapter 7 and a distinctive analysis of hush harbor oriented speeches by then-Senator Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Rhetoricians and readers interested in African American life and culture will appreciate the cogent analysis in Nunley’s volume.
Published by Wayne State University Press
Author(s)
Vorris L. Nunley is professor of English and rhetoric at the University of California, Riverside and co-editor of Rhetoric and Ethnicity.
Reviews
“Nunley’s brilliant analysis of Aaron McGruder’s cartoon Boondocks, the wellknown play Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Lonne Elder III, and Barack Obama’s Race Speech, substantiates his bold claim that ‘to not know [African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric] is to not know Black people, their subjectivities, their perspectives.’”
— Vershawn Young, New Books in African American Studies
“Thoughtfully and masterfully marshalling critical theory, philosophy, cultural studies, rhetorical theory, as well as insights from popular culture, literature, neoliberal theory, feminist geography, President Obama’s ‘Race Speech,’ and much more, Nunley lays bare African American hush harbor rhetoric as a site of knowledge production that validates Black experience and human social value. In the end, he argues that in order for America to reach a more substantial democratic potential, these subjugated discourse and rhetorical practices must become part of the conversation in general rhetorical nomenclature and in the American political public sphere.”
— Elaine Richardson, professor of literacy studies at the Ohio State University and author of the forthcoming educational memoir PGD to PhD: Po Girl on Dope to PhD
“Vorris Nunley has emerged as one of the most insightful and creative African American cultural theorists since the 1970s. His explorations of the fiction of John Oliver Killens, Leon Forrest, and Richard Wright; analyses of a range of African American poetry; mining of Lonne Elder’s dramatic gestures; deft critical handling of movies such as Barbershop; and framing of the Obama-Wright dialectic against the national gaze all reveal marvelous perceptive powers. Keepin' It Hushed is a treasure.”
— Keith Gilyard, Distinguished Professor of English at Penn State University
“A deftly orchestrated piece of rhetoric in its own right, Keepin’ It Hushed riffs from classical philosophy and rhetoric to a sampling of pop culture genres, from canonical to non-canonical literature of the Western, African, and African American traditions. Few writers are able to balance the craft of writing with a comprehensive treatment of ideas the way Nunley does.”
— David G. Holmes, professor of English and Blanche E. Seaver Professor in Humanities at Pepperdine University
“Vorris Nunley’s Keepin’ It Hushed provides a strikingly original framework for talking about African American political agency and rhetorical experience. A rigorous genealogy of race and space, this book combines incisive analyses of specific texts with a general demonstration that African American discursive practices challenge and transform contemporary notions of cultural rhetoric, critical theory, and their interrelations.”
— Steven Mailloux, President’s Professor of Rhetoric at Loyola Marymount University