Rhetorical Touch

"Rhetorical Touch: Disability, Identification, Haptics offers a fresh and convincing argument that interdependence, a key concept in disability studies, is an actual, physical mediating space between bodies where inner and outer meet. Supported by classical and contemporary examples, Walters shows how touch, occurring at the intersection of bodies, is rhetorical, thereby enlarging a key concept in disability studies—interdependence—while highlighting the importance of haptics for communication and learning."—Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, professor emerita of English, Disability Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Miami University

"In this excellent book, Shannon Walters reveals how, given much more recent attention to disability studies, animal studies, and the haptics of new technologies, touch can and should be at the very center of rhetorical study today. This book offers an ambitious, radical, and finally quite successful reinvigoration of the entirety of rhetorical history, resituating non-normative bodies at the center of inquiry, and touch at the center of communication, reaching out to blur nebulous boundary lines between self and other, human and animal, body and technology."—Jay Dolmage, associate professor of English, University of Waterloo, and editor, Canadian Journal of Disability Studies

"This important book takes up two critical strands of rhetoric/composition—touch and disability. While employing new theories to illuminate the importance of each strand, Rhetorical Touch also deepens our understanding of long-standing and key themes, including identification and teacher-research. Walters's use of classical and modern rhetorical theory gives this book complexity and heft. It is the culmination of many years of deep study, written in clear, engaging prose."—Margaret Price, associate professor of English, Spelman College