Standing in the Intersection

Book excerpt: Winnerof the 2013 Best Edited Book Award presented by the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG) Building on the decades of work by women of color and allied feminists, Standing in the Intersection is the first book in more than a decade to bring communication studies and feminist intersectional theories in conversation with one another. The authors in this collection take up important conversations relating to notions of style, space, and audience, and engage with the rhetoric of significant figures, including Carol Moseley Braun, Barbara Jordan, Emma Goldman, and Audre Lorde, as well as crucial contemporary issues such as campus activism and political asylum. In doing so, they ask us to complicate notions of space, location, and movement; to be aware of and explicit with regard to our theorizing of intersecting and contradictory identities; and to think about the impact of multiple dimensions of power in understanding audiences and audiencing.