Quiet Defiance: The Rhetoric of Silent Protest focuses on the rhetorical dimensions and power of silent protest. Bridging the gap between the study of protest and the study of rhetorical silence (strategic silence meant to communicate to and influence an audience), this book is the first of its kind to concentrate solely on the phenomenon and tradition of silent protest. The contributors to this volume hail from different cultures, disciplines, and fields. They examine past and present-day cases of silent protest with different research questions and paradigmatic perspectives in mind and methodological approaches at hand. Collectively, however, their original chapters offer a rich, multifaceted understanding of the potentialities, limits, nature, effects, risks, and rewards of silent acts of protest-individual or otherwise-against oppressive, unjust regimes and systems of power.

David W. Seitz is associate professor of communication at Penn State Mont Alto.