Four Species of Suspectacle

Abstract

The “suspectacle” of my title is intended to connect the idea of performance to the idea of suspicion through their apparent shared concern for the visual a-“spect”. The presumptively dominant concern for the visual in the language of (and talk about) suspicion will be critiqued in this essay. My methodology is etymological and philological, which entails suspicion of the surface of words and an excavation of deeper significations. I offer four provocations, each of which makes a different point, with each connecting to the others through their shared concern for rhetorical performances in which persuasion, credibility, and doubt are in issue. The first species of suspectacle, which is the subject of my first provocation, I have labelled “credit clause.” It applies to rhetorical performances in “believe me” mode. The second species of suspectacle is labelled “calling out” and describes performances in “don’t believe them” mode. The third species, “countenance,” concerns the performance of social persona. The fourth I call “cargo” because it concerns the relationship between suspicion and weight. I am not offering a sustained literary reading of any literary text, but a strategy for reading rhetorical performance in which persuasion is attempted and suspicion is at issue. Most of my examples are drawn from political performance, and especially the political performance of Donald Trump, but the same strategic appreciation of the dynamics of suspicion-focused performance can be applied to elucidate suspicion as a character trait or narrative device in works of literary fiction.