Michelle Obama: First Lady, American Rhetor is an edited anthology that explores the persona and speech-making of the country’s first African American first lady. The result of these thought-provoking essays is an interdisciplinary text that explores the First Lady from a rhetorical and cultural point of view. Authors analyze her Democratic National Convention speeches, her brand as First Lady, her communication from her latest trip to Africa, her agenda rhetoric in Let’s Move! and Reach Higher, and her coming out as a Black feminist intellectual when she spoke at Maya Angelou’s memorial service. Readers will recognize Michelle Obama as a rhetor of our times—a woman who influences America at the intersections of gender, race, and class and who is representative of what women are today.
This book explores Michelle Obama’s rhetoric through rhetorical and cultural analysis. It is useful for graduate courses in communication, as well as disciplines where first lady scholarship is the focus. Concepts such as brand, rhetorical strategy, ethos, persona, audience, black feminist theory, and race history are integral to this contribution.
