Extracted Speech: Being Made to Speak (led by Sophia Rommel)

Wednesday November 20, 4 – 6 pm, Edgecliffe G03.

Extracted Speech: Being Made to Speak (led by Sophia Rommel)

Abstract: Imagine you are a woman sitting in a tutorial, discussing a seminal text with your group. You desire to point out how the author’s argument entails implicit gendered assumptions. You look around the room and remember your teacher’s praise of the text as convincing, your classmates’ shared belief that the main argument is logically valid, and your friend’s dismissal of your critical point when you told her about it before the tutorial. When your teacher asks you whether you have any thoughts on the text, you say, “it’s well-written, convincing, and the main argument is logically valid.” The class nods in agreement. You feel momentarily relieved, but thereupon realise you were made to utter a statement completely at odds with your thoughts. Power, speech, and agency are inextricably intertwined. So, what happens if we explore how power enables us to speak? More specifically, what if power makes us say something we disagree with? This is what McKinney labels ‘extracted speech’. What can we discover when we apply this notion to a classroom setting, such as a Philosophy tutorial?

This is part of the St Andrew’s MAP Chapter — Minorities And Philosophy (MAP).