Double-Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack Obama

Double-Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack Obama Synopsis

"e;This incisive work"e; examining Obama's speeches and the theories of W.E.B. DuBois "e;illuminates the influences of words and ideas"e; (Choice).The racial history of US citizenship is vital to our understanding of both citizenship and race. Robert E. Terrill argues that, to invent a robust manner of addressing one another as citizens, Americans must draw on the indignities of racial exclusion that have stained citizenship since its inception. In Double-Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack Obama, Terrill demonstrates how President Barack Obama's public address models such a discourse.Terrill contends that Obama's most effective oratory invites his audiences to experience a form of "e;double-consciousness,"e; famously described by W. E. B. Du Bois as a feeling of "e;two-ness"e; resulting from the African American experience of "e;always looking at one's self through the eyes of others."e; An effect of cruel alienation, this double-consciousness can also offer valuable perspectives on society. When addressing fellow citizens, Obama asks each to share in the "e;peculiar sensation"e; that Du Bois described.Through close analyses of selected speeches from Obama's 2008 campaign and first presidential term, this book argues that Obama does not present double-consciousness merely as a point of view but as an idiom with which we might speak to one another. Of course, as Du Bois's work reminds us, double-consciousness results from imposition and encumbrance, so that Obama's oratory presents a mode of address that emphasizes the burdens of citizenship together with the benefits, the price as well as the promise.