Seriality and Agency in the Religious Collective

While it is common to think of "women" as a "group" of people, this is a problem, because it leads to essentialism, that is, it leads to thinking of all women as though they have a certain aim or project in common simply by virtue of being female. Iris Young writes, “’Woman’ is a reasonable social category expressing a certain kind of social unity. At the same time, conceptualizing of gender as a serial collectivity avoids the problems that emerge from saying women are a single group” (728).

While religious groups are not an absolute parallel – membership is generally elective, and members do consciously join the group – this concept of seriality is helpful. On a basic level, religious groups have characteristics of both a serial collective and a group (as Young defines them). However, using seriality as a lens for a religious groups brings to light more levels of collective dynamics and the roles of those who study these groups.

Young writes, “Seriality designates a level of social life and action, the level of habit and unreflective reproduction of ongoing historical and social structures. Self-conscious groups arise from and on the basis of serialized existence, as a reaction to it and an active reversal of it anonymous and isolating conditions” (728).

Hasidic women have properties of both a seriality and a group. A “seriality” is defined as “a social collective whose members are unified passively by the objects around which their actions are oriented or by the objectified results of the material effects of the actions of the others” (Young 724). A group is “a collection of persons who recognize themselves and one another as in a unified relation with one another” (723). Members of a group share a common project or aim. While Young offers these definitions as oppositions mainly as oppositions to one another (although groups can rise out of serialities), I argue that these definitions are less polarized.

It is perhaps that there is a continuum of “group-ness” within a seriality. For example, gathering for a time of worship might be a time at which members are more cognizant of their unified relationship with one another. This is a time where the common project is explicit and concrete. However, while members of a religious group, especially one as separatist as the Hasidim, would probably identify themselves as a group because of their major difference from surrounding communities, using Young’s group definition to examine agency within this group limits the kinds of agency that can be examined. By using seriality as a lens to examine a certain collective, it is possible to both avoid essentialism and, more importantly, to notice a more kinds of agency – agency that is collective, individual, assigned, created, and agency that is on the collective, that is, agency of those outside of the collective that act on the women. Examining Hasidic women simultaneously as both a group and a serial collective allows us to see both the agency of individuals as well as group agency, and to avoid essentialism while coming to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of agency of religious communities.

Rhetorical Silence, Part 2: Silence and Agency

Karlyn Campbell writes that agency is the capacity to speak or write in ways that are understood by people in one’s own community. Much rhetorical theory on agency focuses on speech and action, but silence too can be an expression of agency. Studying silences can also reveal who has agency and how it is used in discourse situations.

In Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence, Cheryl Glenn writes, “Silence exists in overlapping states: environmental, locational, communal, and personal. It can be self- or other-initiated, self- or other derived. Silence can be something one does, something that is done to someone, or something that one experiences. However it takes shape, the form of silence (the delivery) is always the same, but the function of the specific acts, states, phenomena of silence – that is, its interpretation and its effect on other people – varies according to the social-rhetorical context in which it occurs” (Glenn 9). This quotation from Unspoken articulates the possibilities of agency in silence.

Consider again the example of the student who does not say the pledge of allegiance. The student is in a classroom community, where silence and speech are often very clearly regulated. There are certain actions and statements that are expected in the classroom. A very basic one is to respond with “here” or “present” when roll is called. Another one is speak when called upon – or to stay silent until called upon. It is generally expected (though not required) that students stand and say the Pledge in the morning. This is a sort of communal speech act that discourses about and affirms a shared value. When a student does not participate, he or she is taking silence, rather than it being given or expected. Silence in this case is quite active: the student steps away from the community for a time and does not affirm this particular value. This unexpected silence adds to the discourse: paradoxically, it adds another active (though not disruptive) voice. The discourse about patriotism expressed by the speech act has become more complex. (This is not to say that all of the people saying the Pledge believe the same thing – rather, this is about what people are actively saying or doing.)

As a teacher, I notice silence in my classroom. Sometimes silent students are engaged in discourse outside my classroom (texting). Other times, their silence communicates disinterest, confusion, or a quiet protest against the lesson for any variety of reasons. Yet, these students are part of the discourse situation. The silent students are sometimes (though not always) making statements, or taking agency. In any given class period, I offer several ways for my students to speak or write in ways that the community recognizes. These are prescribed (or required) agencies. However, students do not have to accept these agencies. Refusal to speak or to write – taking silence – is one way that they can take an agency I do not give them. Their refusal communicates something to me and to classmates (and often it isn’t the same message). As the teacher, I am in a position of power and in a situation where I can determine how student will have (or will not have) agency. Students can get in trouble for the some of the ways they use language to take agency. However, it is harder to get in trouble when using silence, and so it can be an effective way of communicating dissent to the teacher or a way of taking away some of the power the teacher has to control or shape classroom discourse.

Agents in a discourse situation can use silence – it is a way to communicate something, and even if the silence is unexplained, it adds to the discourse situation. The addition of silence makes a discourse situation and the power play more complex. By noticing the silent “voices” in discourse more agents and types of agency are seen.

Rhetorical Silence, Part 1: The Pledge of Allegiance

Part way through high school, I stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance during the morning announcements. I chose silence. I didn’t explain this choice to anyone. No one asked about why I stopped saying the Pledge and I doubt anyone even noticed. I did not initiate any conversations about why I stopped. Still, the silence was intentional and had a communicative purpose.

In Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence, author Cheryl Glenn examines silence as a rhetorical move with as much potential nuance and complexity as speech. Silence is not the absence of discourse; rather, silence is part of discourse. She stated, “Rhetorical power is not limited to words alone, and for this reason the study of silence has much to offer the powerful and disempowered alike. J.L Austin’s theory of speech acts (from How to Do Things with Words) taken in combination with Glenn’s theory of silence as rhetorically productive lends to some interesting theorizing about silences that replace communal or ritual speech acts.

Austin writes that a speech act occurs when “the uttering of the sentences is, or is part of, the doing of the action, which again would not normally be described as just saying something” (682). In saying the Pledge, a person isn’t reporting on patriotism or country allegiance, he or she is engaging in it. While whether this applies well to every saying the Pledge of Allegiance is somewhat debatable – is the five year old who isn’t aware of what the Pledge means also engaging in patriotism? – looking at the reciting of these words as a speech act leads to questioning what sort of act occurs when a person doesn’t say the Pledge. I would argue that in this case, staying silent is similar to making a speech act.

My form of silence, the refusal to perform a certain speech-act and to instead substitute silence, was a quiet way of taking power, a way of stating, without words, “I do not wish to make that particular speech act.” I did not have to state why I disagreed with the Pledge. I did not replace the Pledge with a speech act that fit my beliefs. The inverse of a speech act – what we might call a silence act – simply communicated that I did not take the action of the speech act. To clarify, a ‘silence act’ does not mean that I do a task (say, wash the dishes) without speaking. Rather, I mean that a ‘silence act’ is an intended use of silence in place of a speech act.

This idea of a ‘silence act,’ or a speech act without words is intriguing, especially when considered while studying a religious group. Prayer can certainly be a speech act. In the case of spoken prayer, the act of speaking the words is prayer. Communal forms of worship contain speech acts or may be speech act in and of themselves. But, praying silently and staying silent during part of corporal worship contain as much possibility of rhetorical action as does praying out loud. Examining certain silences as “acts” lends a new understanding of the possible agencies the silence reflects in a discourse situation. (Watch for a further blog post to unpack this…)

Austin, J.L. “From How to Do Things with Words.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Third Edition. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. 679-690.

Glenn, Cheryl. Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP. 2004.