ABSTRACT

The field of communication offers the study of whiteness a focus on discourse which directs its attention to the everyday experiences of whiteness through regimes of truth, embodied acts, and the deconstruction of mediated texts. This book takes an intersectional approach to whiteness studies, researching whiteness through rhetorical analysis, qualitative research, performance studies, and interpretive research.

More specifically the chapters deconstruct the communicative power of whiteness in the context of the United States, but with discussion of the implications of this power internationally, by taking on relevant and current topics such as terrorism, post-colonial challenges, white fragility at the national level, the emergence of colorblind discourse as a pro-white discursive strategy, the relationship of people of color with and through whiteness, as well as multifaceted identities that intersect with whiteness, including religion, masculinity and femininity, social class, ability, and sexuality.

chapter 1|12 pages

Introduction

Introducing Twenty-first Century Whiteness or “Everything Old Is New Again”

part I|16 pages

Intersectional Readings of Whiteness through Bodies of Color

chapter 3|17 pages

Queerness as Strategic Whiteness

A Queer Asian American Critique of Peter Le

chapter 4|20 pages

Reverberations of Familial and Cultural Histories

Performances with and against Whiteness

part II|27 pages

Intersectional Readings of Whiteness through White Bodies

chapter 6|23 pages

From White Ladies to White Trash Mamas

(Re)Locating the Performances of White Femininity

chapter 7|16 pages

Digging In

White Trash, Trailer Trash, and the (Im)Mobility of Whiteness

chapter 8|19 pages

A Forgotten History of Eugenics

Reimagining Whiteness and Disability in the Case of Carrie Buck

part III|23 pages

Intersectional Readings of Whiteness through Discursive Strategies

chapter 9|23 pages

Monstrous Authenticity

Trump’s Whiteness

chapter 11|20 pages

Nightmares of Whiteness

Dreams and Deportability in the Age of Trump

chapter 12|21 pages

“The Colonial Jesus”

Deconstructing White Christianity