Containing Sotomayor
Rhetorics of personal restraint, judicial prudence, and diabetes management
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9240337 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Judith A Bennett (0000-0002-2426-7071, Vanderbilt University, corresponding author), Jeffrey A Bennett (Communication Studies, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 257-278 |
| Publication date | 2018-07-03 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Quarterly Journal of Speech (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-5630 • E-ISSN: 1479-5779 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00335630.2018.1486033 |
| OpenAlex | W2809481149 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
This essay explores how rhetorics of diabetes management informed Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial persona during her ascent to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings were clouded famously by institutional racism and sexism. She was accused repeatedly by congressional Republicans of being intemperate, emotional, and illogical in a judicial sphere that prizes circumspection, deliberateness, and collegiality. As part of a larger strategy to counter such claims, the Obama administration forwarded her lifetime of managing type-one diabetes as proof of personal control, and by extension judicial prudence. This strategic invocation of intersectionality, using a disability to rhetorically “contain” race and gender, helped to successfully resituate universal notions of wisdom and secure Sotomayor a seat on the nation’s highest court
Political science · Prudence · Sociology · Theology · Philosophy · Psychology · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
| Citations per year | 0.83 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2024 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |