Interconnectivity: Global Rhetorics and Power Transformation (Composition, Literacy, and Culture) - Hardcover

Zhu, Hua

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822949121 ISBN 13: 9780822949121

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2026

Synopsis

All rhetorics function within the dynamics of power. Hua Zhu proposes interconnectivity as a frame of power transformation. Western understandings of power relations as oppositional and essentialist result in the systematic production of the Other―a structure that is reproduced in the West/non-West hierarchy. Interconnectivity as a new conceptual framework, on the other hand, conceives of any dyadic relationship as “relating-yet-separating” and as a resource for interdependence. It fosters a new discursive order where there is no center to imagine from, but subjects of all kinds can coexist and coevolve. To theorize how this discursive order takes place, Zhu examines the enactment of interconnectivity in different sites, from ancient China to global contact zones and to contemporary writing classrooms. She concretizes how one can act, think, and become to subvert othering and to bring forth a living environment where interlocutors can become interdependent.

About this title

About the Author

Hua Zhu is assistant professor of writing and rhetoric at the University of Utah.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

© 2026 University of Pittsburgh Press. All rights reserved. Not for distribution. Provided by the publisher University of Pittsburgh Press for review copy purposes only.

From the Introduction

I vividly remember my first semester teaching first-year writing as a graduate student in my early twenties. I was fifteen minutes early in the classroom on the first day of class, setting up the projector and organizing course materials. As students gradually came to class, a few students, after noticing me standing in the front, walked outside of the classroom to double-check the room number, came back in, and hesitantly asked other students whether or not the class was really an English writing course. There might have been many reasons why students double-checked. Perhaps it was because the room was relatively empty. However, I cannot help but wonder to what extent my Asian woman face played into these types of encounters. Would there be fewer students doubting whether or not it is the right classroom if the professor had a different look―say, if the professor looked like an “American” teacher?

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822949121
• ISBN 13: 9780822949121
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288