Rhetoric and Composition as Tools to Counter Violence

Dr. Beth Godbee challenges her students to avoid complacency when they see or experience injustice. Lessons developed from her fellowship research provide students with a framework to determine the appropriate response.

For the past few years Dr. Beth Godbee, assistant professor of English at Marquette University, has researched how communication can be used to counter violence and build more equitable relations. She received a Rynne Faculty Research Fellowship for the summer of 2015 to explore the role rhetoric and communication play in understanding power structures, power abuse, and forms of violence.

She is especially excited to use her research in the classroom. One of the lessons focuses on identifying the appropriate action to take in response to an injustice.

Godbee provides a framework for the three fundamental types of power responses. First is ‘power over’ which symbolizes domination or status. Second is ‘power with’ which is best described as solidarity or standing with the oppressed. Third is ‘power to’ which is based on using our resources to take action or create a solution.

Each type of power has a corresponding response-ability, or a way in which one can respond. The response-ability associated with ‘power over’ is expressed in the phrase “speaking truth to power.”

“Power in numbers” is the basis of ‘power with’ or solidarity. She adds that in practicing solidarity, it is more important to “stand on the same ground” literally or symbolically than to be in the same position as the oppressed.

Lastly, the response-ability that corresponds with ‘power to’ is summed up with the phrase “power to the people” which recognizes that these problems were created by people and thus can be fixed by people.

Through teaching these three types of power and the corresponding response-abilities, Godbee challenges her students who express complacency or deflect responsibility.

The knowledge students gain through English courses such as Writing for Social Justice are important because she says, “when they see injustice they can enact change and avoid complacency.”

Her students learn that whenever and wherever they witness or experience injustice, they have the ability to respond.

Because of this research Godbee says that students are “learning to transform, and practice different ways of enacting power” as well as “how to see ourselves as powerful with and alongside others.”