Standing in the Wake of my Father’s Silence (An Alternative Eulogy)
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-1-2013
Abstract
Silence in human social engagement is not only the absence of talk, it is also a strategic rhetoric used to emphasize the said and the unsaid. Hence, in the absence of words, silence speaks volumes about the relationship of its engagement or the impulse of its in/action. In this short piece I am using the occasion of eulogizing my father as both a commentary on our life together, and as a critical component of my own recovery from that life. But more importantly, I am engaged in a reflection on how my father used silence as parental stratagem and social agency. In the process, I am made more aware of the effects of my father’s silence, the legacy of that silence, and the psychology of silence that circulates like complicity in my blood.
Original Publication Citation
Alexander, B. K. (2013). “Standing in the Wake of my Father’s Silence (An Alternative Eulogy).” In S. Malhotra & A. Carrillo Rowe (Eds.). Silence and Power: Feminist Reflections at the Edges of Sound (pp. 230-‐238). New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press.
Digital Commons @ LMU & LLS Citation
Alexander, Bryant Keith, "Standing in the Wake of my Father’s Silence (An Alternative Eulogy)" (2013). Communication Studies Faculty Works. 76.
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/comm_fac/76
