Khrebtan and Kim co-author article on “comfort women” published in Quarterly Journal of Speech

Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager and Min Kim (M.A., ’16; B.A., ’08) have published their co-authored article, “Re-membering Comfort Women: From On-Screen Storytelling and Rhetoric of Materiality to Rethinking History and Belonging,”  in the Quarterly Journal of Speech.

Abstract
The essay aims to contribute to the development of invitational rhetorical theory, using the tragic and sobering story of “comfort women” as an illustrative case study. By focusing on the relatively recent mediated and special turns in the rhetorical studies, we propose a critical cultural analysis and eventual addendum of mediated texts as well as the rhetoric of materiality as essential means to understand and apply invitational rhetoric. Our project demonstrates how—in a socio-political context of cultural erasure and forgetting—material and visual messages serve as the most invitational modalities. The material and visual rhetoric intervene in the context of strategic amnesia, endurance, and as they center the voices and experiences that historically have been made completely subaltern. Utilizing a selection of artifacts of the rhetoric of materiality and pieces of media rhetoric, we demonstrate how those forms of invitational rhetoric create and encourage safe dialogical spaces for traditionally silenced, marginalized communities. Ultimately, we aim to demonstrate how the new understanding and utilization of invitational rhetoric can become a mechanism for social change and enable a shift in the public consciousness.

Online access:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00335630.2020.1828606

Citation: Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager & Minkyung Kim (2020) Re-membering comfort women: From on-screen storytelling and rhetoric of materiality to re-thinking history and belonging, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 106:4, 427-452, DOI: 10.1080/00335630.2020.1828606

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  • Tags: article, faculty, alumni, Khrebtan, relational and organizational communication
  • Date: November 2, 2020