Rhetoric in the Time of Torture

In Rhetoric in the Time of Torture, Laura A. Sparks investigates how rhetoric and interrogational torture are imbricated with one another, troubling clear distinctions between persuasion and violence. In light of the U.S. government’s post-9/11 reliance on heavy interrogation techniques, Sparks offers a renewed attention to the rhetorical and temporal dimensions of torture, including the ways in which techniques utilized by military interrogators are intertwined with violent action. The author introduces compelling temporal logics related to imminence, surveillance, and prisoners’ world-times, among others, illuminating how temporal concerns figure in both justifications for and practices of torture. In addition, this book offers a range of case studies, including select torture memos, photographs from Abu Ghraib Detention Center, and opportunities for digital human rights advocacy, to demonstrate how recognizing torture’s rhetorical and temporal dimensions is crucial to our understanding and critique of interrogational torture in the present day. Ultimately, Sparks invites readers to consider where rhetoric fits in a world where people torture others to make them speak. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and political science will find this book of particular interest.

Laura A. Sparks is associate professor of English at California State University.