Resisting Change, Exerting Control: American Claims on the Future in Cold War Foreign Policy Discourse
Resisting Change, Exerting Control: American Claims on the Future in Cold War Foreign Policy Discourse
Dr. Patricia Dunmire presents a critical analysis of futurity by considering the nature and function of hegemonic projections of the future in American foreign policy discourse.
Scholars from a range of disciplines have identified the future as a site of resistance and control and, thus, critical analysis of projections of the future as a means for examining how social and political power is claimed, exercised, and resisted. Indeed, the ability to create the future is the very essence of power as those who have “insight into the future also control some of the present” (Galtung and Jungk 1960). Underlying this research is the assumption that calls for social change depend to a large extent on visions of the future which motivate and compel action in the here and now. Such change is often impeded, however, by hegemonic images and visions of the future which serve to justify and, thereby, maintain, the status quo. Consequently, despite claims that the future is a “territory of freedom” for experimentation, creativity, and change, elite projections of the future all too often dominate public discourse.
This talk presents a critical analysis of futurity by considering the nature and function of hegemonic projections of the future in American foreign policy discourse. I examine the ways the future—as a temporal domain, conceptual space, and rhetorical trope—has figured in conceptions of the United States’ place and purpose in the world. I follow Lewis Lapham (2011) in conceiving of the future as “America’s most precious resource, the ground of its being and basis of its economy as well as the focus of its politics.” In particular, I examine the importance of futurity to American national identity and how this aspect of the nation’s identity has been used rhetorically to legitimate its foreign policy during the Cold War. My argument is situated within the discourse and ideology of American Exceptionalism—the insistence that the U.S. has “a unique destiny and history”—which has undergirded the nation’s identity and geopolitical role since its founding. My talk draws out the temporal dimension of the exceptionalist ideology, namely the construal of America as the “great nation of futurity” (O’Sullivan 1839).
To RSVP contact Sara Wilder swilder@umd.edu.
Biography
After completing doctoral work at Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Patricia Dunmire presents a critical analysis of futurity by considering the nature and function of hegemonic projections of the future in American foreign policy discourse. Dunmire joined the Rhetoric and Composition faculty at Kent State University in 1995 and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetoric, argumentation, propaganda, and discourse analysis. Dunmire's primary research interest concerns the political nature and function of discourses of the future. Her work has been published in a variety of journals, including Discourse & Society, Futures, The Journal of Language and Politics, and Critical Discourse Studies. She is currently working on a project which examines the temporal nature of American national identity and the rhetorical role that identity plays in foreign policy and national security discourse.