Placing second: Empathic unsettlement as a vehicle of consubstantiality at the Silent Gesture statue of Tommie Smith and John Carlos

Abstract

In this article, I explore the material rhetorics of place from the perspective of transferential space. Specifically, I examine the Silent Gesture statue of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at San José State University. Drawing on Alison Landsberg’s concept of transferential space and Dominick LaCapra’s concept of empathic unsettlement, I argue that the statue explores the limits of identification in such a way that illuminates new possibilities for the rhetoricity of transferential space. Specifically, I argue that the statue’s invitation to physically and metaphorically ‘Take a Stand’ with Smith and Carlos facilitates noteworthy tensions of civic identity and, in turn, fosters mnemonic practices of consubstantiality with the disenfranchised for its visitors.

Keywords

consubstantiality empathic unsettlement material rhetoric public memory transferential space

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