From Circus to Fasces: The Disciplinary Politics of Citizen and Citizenship

In spite of the frequency of their use, the terms “citizen” and the related “citizenship” have been deployed with a casual imprecision in rhetorical studies, and the relatively few attempts to theorize these terms in a way that would resolve the confusion that attends their routine appearance have explicitly expanded the terrain of the political to the point where few, if any, actions could possibly be thought to be outside of the political domain. Through an examination of the use of these terms over the past dozen years, and a critical engagement with the “discourse theory” of citizenship, the authors suggest that the time has to come to ask whether rhetorical studies should concern itself less with the lack in and of the political per se and more with its excesses.