In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Rhetoric of Sincerity
  • Sinkwan Cheng (bio)
The Rhetoric of Sincerity. Edited by Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, and Carel Smith. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. 352 pp. Paper $24.95.

The book features contributors from six countries and nine disciplines. It opens with a historical and cross-cultural justification for this collection: "In times of intercultural tensions and conflicts, sincerity matters" (1). The editors believe that sincerity deserves not only multiple cultural [End Page 122] (if not multicultural) takes but also interdisciplinary consideration: "The issue of sincerity cannot be appropriated as the exclusive domain of any intellectual field or academic discipline" (2). This laudable intention of the book, however, is undermined by its content. Despite the range of contributors and the collection's stated attempt to address "intercultural tensions," the "diverse cultures" being discussed in this book are limited largely to the experience of Jews, the exceptions being one chapter on Turkish immigrants in Germany and another on Italian southerners. The majority of people outside the West have no voice in this volume, nor are their cultures represented in its pages. As for the "non-Western" ethnicities that do get included, they are confined to immigrants in the Western hemisphere.

With the predominance of Western perspectives, the editors miss a chance for critically reflecting on a central assumption of the collection as suggested by its organization. The three parts of the book—"Sincerity as Subjectivity Effect," "Declining Sincerity," and "Sincerity as Media Effect"—seem to suggest that sincerity, be it of the effect of subjectivity or the media, is a mere ideological byproduct. Thus, while the book seeks to dislodge sincerity from its traditional Western association with the subject (the word "Western" not noted by the editors but added by the reviewer), it never questions its own ideology of taking for granted sincerity as a byproduct of ideology. Also, despite the book's attempt to question the "necessary tie" between sincerity and subjectivity, the existence of a "subject" seems never to be questioned by the collection, as is evident, for example, in the way that part 2 hastens to propose "alternative subjectivities" to replace "traditional subjectivity" (4). What the collection overlooks is that not all traditions entertain the idea of a subject in the first place, nor do all traditions deem sincerity to be an ideological byproduct. Confucianism, for example, underscores the necessity of grounding ethics in sincerity without associating sincerity with either a subject or an ideology

The introduction presents part 1, "Sincerity as Subjectivity Effect," in primarily historical terms: "Here, historical beginnings are confronted with contemporary practices" (4). The section could perhaps have been more meaningfully conceptualized within an interdisciplinary rather than historical frame, because the contributors to part 1 do not seem to be primarily interested in history (with the exception of Jane Taylor, who traces certain rhetorical and performative apparatuses of sincerity to sixteenth-century Europe). In fact, Frans-Willem Korsten, Carel Smith, and Hent de Vries are concerned with theoretical rather than historical questions. The merits of the individual essays (such as those by Vries and Korsten) might have been better displayed if they had been framed more in accordance with their real foci and strengths. [End Page 123]

Taylor's discussion of torture and conversion in sixteenth-century Europe is followed by Katherine Bergeron's discourse on the valorization in Republican France of the sincerity in Sarah Bernhardt's voice in relationship to its idea(l)s of democracy. Korsten analyzes sincerity and hypocrisy in politics, arguing for the important role of sincerity as "a necessary force to counteract hypocrisy, the latter threatening to undermine any system founded on justice" (8). Smith explores how the judge is bound by legal rather than abstract truth—that is, bound by law instead of sincerity. His insightful analysis is somewhat marred by his universalizing language, which glosses over the fact that the "legal profession" discussed in his essay has limited relevance outside the modern Western context.1 De Vries takes up Cavell's engagement with J. L. Austin. His essay dramatizes the tragedy of sincerity, of "the inability to be insincere, an inability not to be signed onto your words and deeds." Equally...

pdf