THE UNIVERSE OF THINGS: Power in a More Than Human World1

In this chapter, we explore the challenge of speculative realism for considerations of rhetoric and power in a world that vastly exceeds the human. In what follows, we suggest three shifts: from the hierarchies inherent in Cartesianism to a flatter ontology; from the human subject and reason to assemblages amidst the pandemonium of things; and from the concept of power to that of force. We explore these shifts in a variety of ways, but most notably by encountering and tracing Peter Gabriel’s song i/o. Our process leads us to reconceptualize rhetorical study as the practice of tracing forces to discern the affects and effects provoked by things as they circulate, collide, and collaborate via assemblages and networks across earthscapes and mediascapes.