Reclaiming Queer: Activist and Academic Rhetorics of Resistance by Erin J. Rand (review)

Erin J. Rand’s new book, Reclaiming Queer: Activist and Academic Rhetorics of Resistance, develops a compelling theory of rhetorical agency while grappling with the complex interrelationship between academic queer theory and street-level queer activism. “No matter how much activist and scholarly work may be mutually beneficial,” Rand explains, “there is no denying that each group occupies very different institutional positions, and the resulting discrepancies in power and privilege can be the source of much contention” (8–9). While remaining firmly rooted in the academic, Rand’s book identifies and departs from a self-valuing preoccupation in which academics ask how theories are put into practice. Rather, she interrogates how practice is put into theory by “ask[ing] how activist practices have had an influence in shaping queer theory as an academic field” (11).

Whereas this book reads smoothly from cover to cover, there are two thematically divergent sections of the book that may appeal to different readers. The first section includes the introduction and conclusion. Beyond providing the book’s framework and establishing its contribution to larger scholarly discussions, these chapters offer a sophisticated theoretical account of rhetorical agency based on a particular rendering of “queerness” and rhetorical form. The development of this argument alone justifies picking up a copy of the book.

Rand deftly carves out a case for reconsidering questions of rhetorical effect, agency, form, and the relationship between theory and practice. She provides a faithful account of key terminological disputes and then remaps the terms by introducing queerness, here understood as the condition in rhetorical action that makes agency possible. Rand explains that “this is a de-essentialized notion of queerness that disconnects ‘queer’ from any particular referent and refigures it as the undecidability from which rhetorical agency is actualized” (22). Consequently, the “queerness” being reclaimed evokes potentiality, undecidability, and risk.

Had Rand stopped here, the theory of agency would ring somewhat hollow, only reminding us of what we ought already have known since Greek antiquity—rhetorical agency is an amorphous concept that describes the potential from which rhetorical agency is actualized. Rand’s decision to raise rhetorical form as her central lens of analysis pays dividends here. Rhetorical forms, Rand explains, are effects of power that provide frameworks through which discourse may be recognized and understood. Consequently, “rhetorical agency arises from the positioning of a text as an identifiable form, appears as stylistic freedom within that form, and is actualized through an essentializing gesture that defers temporarily the possibility of acting or speaking otherwise” (164).

The second section, composed of the content chapters, offers a series of four theory-informed rhetorical critiques that show how significant queer activist discourses and social movements have influenced academic queer theory. Though the message remains the same regarding a referent-less “queerness” as a wellspring from which rhetorical agency happens, the topical focus of the content chapters brings a referent back to the discussion. The chapters address how queer activism has informed academic queer theory from the inception of an academic space (chapter 1), to refutations of Larry Kramer’s polemics (chapter 2), the Lesbian Avengers’ provocations that queer theorists have largely overlooked (chapter 3), and finally ACT UP’s use of shame as a persuasive resource (chapter 4). Readers interested in scholarship on LGBTQ activism in general will find these chapters to be a fine addition to the standing scholarship.

Simultaneously, the case studies provide the evidentiary materials that support and illustrate the book’s theoretical work with a focus on the relationships between institutions and agency and resistance and systemic power (chapter 1) and the relationship between form, content, potentiality, and rhetorical agency (chapters 2, 3, and 4). While the case studies do a fine job of grounding Rand’s disciplinary specific theoretical claims in a way that a broad readership will find accessible, they also showcase the critical value of the theory. In short, both LGBTQ activism and...