Identity’s Strategy
Rhetorical Selves in Conversion
Dana Anderson
In Identity’s Strategy, Dana Anderson seeks to construct a rhetorical theory
for understanding persuasive strategies involved in the expression of personal
identity. Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s “Dialectic of Constitutions,” Anderson
analyzes conversion narratives to illustrate how the authors of these autobiographical texts describe dramatic changes in their identities as a means of
influencing the beliefs and action of their readers.
Often a troubling theoretical term, identity conveys the idea that people
possess a certain capacity for self-understanding and self-definition. But
whatever the forces at work behind the identity one claims, the act of communicating this self-interpretation to others is inherently rhetorical. Expanding on Burkean concepts of human symbol use, Anderson works to parse and
critique such inevitable persuasive ends of identity constitution.
Anderson examines the strategic presentation of identity in four narratives
of powerful religious, sexual, political, and mystical conversions: Catholic
social activist Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness, political commentator David Brock’s Blinded by the Right, Deirdre McCloskey’s memoir of transgender
transformation, Crossing, and the well-known Native American text Black Elk
Speaks. Mapping the rhetorical strategies at play in each narrative, Anderson
points toward a broader understanding of how identity is made—and how it
is made persuasive.
Dana Anderson is an assistant
professor of English at Indiana
University and an editor of the KB
Journal. His work has appeared
in Philosophy and Rhetoric, College
Composition and Communication,
Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Queen,
and Journal of Popular Culture.
Studies in Rhetoric/Communication • Thomas W. Benson, series editor
October 2007, 216 pages
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