“Ouija board, are there any communications?” Agency, ontotheology, and the death of the humanist subject, or, continuing the ARS conversation

Abstract

This essay responds to Cheryl Geisler's “report” on the discussions about the concept of agency at the 2003 Alliance of Rhetorical Societies conference. We argue that Geisler's report inaccurately and unfairly describes the wide‐ranging positions discussed at the conference, particularly by collapsing subjectivity and agency and by advancing a strawperson argument about “postmodernism.” In contrast to the humanist understanding, we recommend and describe a negative theology of the subject that adopts a more hospitable posture of uncertainty toward the agent and agency.