One of the basic arguments of the Subaltern Studies project draws attention to the (im)possibilities of dialogue. There always has to be the acknowledgment that the fundamental essence of dialogue is brought into question by the project. Dialogue therefore is both contingent and fragmented, always open to re-interpretation. And also, it is precisely at this moment of dialogic intersections that the culture-centered approach outlines the relevance of engaging with the dominant structures, of challenging them, or bringing them to question, and of continually finding avenues for structural transformation. The politics of representation that must participate in aggregation in order to bring material change is itself situated amidst fragmented interpretations and dialectical tensions.
In a post made in response to the changes to how my discipline operates made by the Executive Committee of the largest organization of the discipline, the National Communication Association (NCA), one of the editors of a disciplinary journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs (RPA), Professor Martin J. Medhurst, a Distinguished Scholar of the discipline, calls out what he sees as the threat of identity (see below for his full piece published in the journal that he has edited for 20+ years, with 2019 SJR score of 0.27). In what he notes is a threat to the "scholarly merit" of the discipline, Professor Medhurst sets up a caricature of what he calls "identity." In his rhetorical construction of the struggles the NCA has faced over the years to find Distinguished Scholars of colour, he shares with us the facts. So let's look at the facts presented by this rhetor. It turns out, as a member of the Distinguished Scholar community of the NCA, Mr. Medhurst has problems wit...