![]() ![]() In My Bondage and My Freedom, I examine the ways in which Douglass locates rhetorical theory in the lived experiences of enslaved people. She argues that African American theory “is often in narrative forms, in the stories create, in riddles and proverbs, in the play with language” (68). ![]() Rhetorical theory in practice builds upon Barbara Christian’s understanding of what theory and theorization looks like within African American communities of practice. My conceptualization of Douglass’s text as rhetorical theory in practice proffers a new way of understanding what shape and form rhetoric and narrative can take, especially for Douglass. The rhetorical situation Douglass faces is highly fraught: other people’s lives are at stake, and the institution of slavery forces him to make legible the atrocities being done to African American bodies. In imagining his work within this space, I utilize Kenneth Burke’s notion of identification and cooperation as a means of understanding how Douglass enacts rhetoric and for what end. This essay examines Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom in a liminal space between disciplinary lines of inquiry. ![]()
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