Insurgent Truth - by Maxwell (Paperback)

About the Book

Challenging depictions of Chelsea Manning as a failed whistleblower, Insurgent Truth argues that Manning's act should be seen as what the book terms "outsider truth-telling." Lida Maxwell develops this argument through an examination of Manning's prison writings, the lengthy chat logs between Manning and the hacker who eventually turned her in, various journalistic, artistic, and academic responses to Manning. Comparing Manning's example and writings with other outsider truth-tellers, including Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, and Bayard Rustin, Maxwell develops a theory of outsider truth-telling as a productive practice of telling unsettling truths from a position of social illegibility.

Book Synopsis

Challenging depictions of Chelsea Manning as a failed whistleblower, Insurgent Truth argues that Manning's act should be seen as what the book terms "outsider truth-telling." Lida Maxwell develops this argument through an examination of Manning's prison writings, the lengthy chat logs between Manning and the hacker who eventually turned her in, various journalistic, artistic, and academic responses to Manning. Comparing Manning's example and writings with other outsider truth-tellers, including Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, and Bayard Rustin, Maxwell develops a theory of outsider truth-telling as a productive practice of telling unsettling truths from a position of social illegibility.

Review Quotes

"The book places Manning within a surprising but thoughtful lineage of historical "outsiders"â On the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising last June, Manning...ended her message with the three words with which she hashtags her most optimistic, radical, and ferocious tweets: "We Got This." Maxwell's reading of Manning's "We" as a collective of outsider truth-tellers, "creating new scenes of reality," is as apt as it is inspiring." -- Natasha Lennard, Bookforum

"At a time when the understandable response to Trump's post-truth regime is to call for a return to facts and reason, Maxwell resurrects an alternative archive of insurgent truth tellers, figures whose credibility can never be assumed, who understand that getting a hearing is as important as getting it right-and that it may be twice as difficult. This is that rarest of books: of the moment and for the ages" -- Corey Robin, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

"Lida Maxell's Insurgent Truth is an extraordinary book, and timely, because it creatively and thoughtfully uses the example of Chelsea Manning to re-imagine 'the politics of truth.'" -- George Shulman, author of American Prophecy: Race and Redemption in American Political Culture

"Chelsea Manning is one of my sheroes, and Lida Maxwell does her justice in Insurgent Truth. She positions Manning, like Cassandra and Socrates before her, as on outsider who not only speaks an unwelcome truth, but who is an unwelcome messenger for bearing that truth. In doing so and being that, Manning's truth-telling practice functions like an ancient oracle for our present day. Her truth-telling shatters everyday common sense-regarding war, surveillance, technology, gender-and summons from it a new ethical ground from which to launch aÂbetter world. The radical politics of truth Maxwell so cogently elucidates are precisely those we need today, when "truth" itself is under assault" -- Susan Stryker, Founding Co-Editor, TSQ Transgender Studies Quarterly

"Lida Maxwell performs a public service by putting a name to, and insightfully analyzing, an all too common and deeply troubling phenomenon: individuals who do not fit the mold of white, cis-gendered, male authority figures are not recognized as neutral, credible sources when they expose systemic injustice, no matter how significant their disclosures. By bringing 'outsider truth-telling' into focus through a close and creative reading of the heroic revelations of Chelsea Manning, Maxwell helps us better appreciate the fact that when people on the margins divulge important information, they also contest the larger social and political structures that perpetuate secrecy and domination in the first place. This is an urgent, erudite, and inspiring book, and one that embodies the truth-telling that is its subject." -- Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone

About the Author

Lida Maxwell is Associate Professor of Political Science and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Boston University. She is the author of Public Trials: Burke, Zola, Arendt, and the Politics of Lost Causes.