In this Book
- The Prettier Doll: Rhetoric, Discourse, and Ordinary Democracy
- Book
- 2007
- Published by: The University of Alabama Press
- Series: Rhetoric, Culture, and Social Critique
summary
Essays in the The Prettier Doll focus on the same local controversy: in 2001,a third-grade girl in Colorado submitted an experiment to the school science fair. She asked 30 adults and 30 fifth-graders which of two Barbie dolls was prettier. One doll was black, the other white, and each wore a different colored dress. All of the adults picked the Barbie in the purple dress, while nearly all of the fifth graders picked the white Barbie. When the student’s experiment was banned an uproar resulted that spread to the national media. School board meetings and other public exchanges highlighted the potent intersection of local and national social concerns: education, censorship, science, racism, and tensions in foundation values such as liberty, democracy, and free speech.
For the authors of these essays, the exchanges that arose from “Barbiegate” illustrate vividly the role of rhetoric at the grassroots level, fundamental to civic judgment in a democratic state and at the core of “ordinary democracy.”
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
- pp. 1-42
- II. THE BARBIEGATE DISCOURSE
- pp. 43-202
- III. AFTER WORDS
- Appendix A: Transcripts of BVSD Speeches
- pp. 251-288
- Contributors
- pp. 293-295
Additional Information
ISBN
9780817380236
Related ISBN(s)
9780817315757, 9780817354398
MARC Record
OCLC
427566791
Pages
316
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2007