Jennifer Clary-Lemon and David M. Grant (Eds.), Decolonial Conversations in Posthuman and New Material Rhetorics. Reviewed by Fatima Zahid Ali

Editors Jennifer Clary-Lemon and David M. Grant have compiled a fascinating decolonial intervention that is both timely and long overdue. The central argument of the book revolves around the synergistic potential of aligning new materialisms and decolonial action as mutually beneficial frameworks for transformative action, highlighting an existing scholarly gap between the two. Featuring contributions from experts in rhetoric, composition, and communication studies, it presents alternative modes of thinking that not only broaden intellectual vistas but also encourage a “healing” discourse. By deliberately advocating and making space for scholarship that decenters Euro-Western theoretical frameworks, Decolonial Conversations in Posthuman and New Material Rhetorics also unpretentiously acknowledges the privileged positionality of the North American academy. Perhaps most important, the book is an interdisciplinary call for collaboration that considers the globality of the Anthropocene without being limited to national borders or performative at best. The “anthropogenic turn” is meant to serve as a bridge and an epistemic tool, to reorient toward a desirable and decolonial future for all. More poignantly—and radically—it effectively counters the frustrations and anxieties of otherness and marginality in the fields of writing, rhetoric, and communication studies.