Smilges, J. L. (2022). Queer Silence: On Disability and Rhetorical Absence. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Review by David Lombard

Smilges’ Queer Silence takes as a starting point the postulate that there is meaning and power in what generally evades our senses: ‘what remains undone, unseen, unheard, and untouched,’ Smilges argues, can be both ‘transformative and world-building’ (Smilges, 2022, p. 3). Queer Silence, therefore, does not merely stand at the crossroads of rhetorical theory, disability studies, and queer studies, but challenges these fields’ fundamental premises.