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Sally Olivas
Rhetoric and Composition Portfolio
Spring 2015
English 581
King and his ANTs
In English 581, History of Rhetoric, I analyzed a lesson I gave about Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.s I Have a Dream speech by using the concept of Kairos. In reexamining that paper,
Id like to use Bruno Latours Actor-Network Theory, which encompasses the idea of networks
and connections. In my original paper, I argued that without Kairos, King and the Civil Rights
Movement would not have been successful. I think adding to that idea that the timing was simply
right for the Movement to finally gain what it sought, I would take Latours theory and say Dr.
King and the Movement could not have been successful without the network and its connections
that drove the Movement.
In developing his ANT, Latour said, What I want to do is redefine the notion of social by
going back to its original meaning and making it able to trace connections again (Reassembling
the Social 1). Further, he said later in trying to clarify what the theory was really about, AT aims
at accounting for the very essence of societies and natures. It does not wish to add social
networks to social theory but to rebuild social theory out of networks (Latour, On ActorNetwork Theory 2). Although King was the leader and face of the Civil Rights Movement, he
was not alone, thus the name Movement. It took thousands of people being involved to create the
change. It was these very connections and networks this Movement - King used to reach his
goals.

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Latour says one aspect of a network is a mediator who transform[s], translate[s],

distort[s], and modif[ies] the meaning of the elements they are supposed to carry (Reassembling
the Social 39). On page 2 of my paper, I would add a paragraph about King being a mediator as
he transformed the era of racism and segregation into an era of change and opportunity.
However, Latour recognizes that the ANT can have many mediators; he says there are an
endless number (40). As just mentioned, the Movement had many, many people fighting
segregation, so this idea of endless mediators directly applies to the Civil Rights Movement
because there were so many people involved, and it could not have been successful without the
sheer numbers of volunteers to create change. Latours idea of a network is one that is . . . a
metaphor of connections. A network is never bigger than another one, it is simply longer or more
intensely connected (On Actor-Network Theory 5). In the Civil Rights Movement, it was the
volunteers the mediators that expanded and lengthened the connections, and these lead to
change.
That being said, theres no doubt King was and remains the face of the Movement
because he was the leader of it. A photo of Dr. King is the first image in my PowerPoint of the
Civil Rights Movement I used to teach my lesson on Kairos. The photo shows a very somber and
frustrated King. This is discussed on page 4 of my paper, and it is here I would expand Latours
point that groups have to have spokespersons. . . all [groups] need some people defining who
they are, what they should be, what they have been. These are constantly at work . . . There is no
group without some kind of recruiting officer (32). Clearly, King qualifies as the spokesperson,
the recruiting officer of the Movement, and he used this role to make the necessary connections
within his network and extending from his network to make things happen.

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King gave his historic speech during the March on Washington, and I reference that event
a few times in my paper and my lesson. On page 4, I would add a paragraph about Latours
belief that an actant does not have to be a human being:
An actor in AT is a semiotic definition an actant that is, something that
acts or to which activity is granted by others. It implies no special motivation of
human individual actors, nor of humans in general. An actant can literally be
anything provided it is granted the source of an action. (Latour, On ActorNetwork Theory 7)
Because the March brought so many thousands of people together and spurred laws to be
changed, its easy to argue it can be seen as an actant. The mediators the volunteers had many
events in which they organized and congregated, such as sit-ins, but none had the effect that the
March on Washington did. The March did act, as Latour says, to cause change.
Latour gives several definitions of what the Actor-Network is, and many of those apply to
King and the Movement. One such definition Latour gives is, An actor-network is an entity that
does the tracing and the inscribing . . . No net exists independently of the very act of tracing it,
and no tracing is done by an actor exterior to the net (Latour, On Actor-Network Theory 7).
On page 7 of my paper, I would add a paragraph that explains how King and the others in the
Movement were tracing and inscribing creating and defining a new way of life in America.
They traced the horrific events that were their reality, and they inscribed into America new laws
that put an end to such horror. With their network, they branched out, making relationships with
the people who could make changes and with white people who had the same vision of America.
The people behind and in the Movement could not do it on their own; they needed their network.
In fact, Latour argues that once the connections of said network are lost, the importance of the

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network is lost, . . . We simply follow how a given element becomes strategic through the
number of connections it commands and how does it lose its importance when losing its
connections (6). King says they must not lose their intensity, i.e., their importance and their
connections. Latour would say if they had, the Movement would not have led to laws being
changed.
The Civil Rights Movement embodies the very definition of a network Latour prescribes.
With its spokesperson, its volunteers, its actant, the Movement succeeded, Latour would say,
because all had ties that were interwoven, tracable, bundled, connected. Adding his ANT to my
lesson would deeply strengthen my students ability to rhetorically analyze Dr. Kings I Have a
Dream speech.

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Works Cited
King, Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream. Washington, D.C. 28 Aug.
1963. Speech.
Latour, Bruno. On actor-network theory. A few clarifications plus more than a few
complications. Soziale Welt: 47 (1996): 369-381. Web.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2