“Cobos explores the changing roles of women in combat-connected positions in the military, highlighting how conceptions of gender and agency have evolved in the armed forces and larger American society. She draws from feminist theory, embodied rhetoric, cyborgization, and discourse analysis to present a complex picture of the women who dispose of explosive ordnance and the military in which they work.”

Mark Blaauw-Hara, University of Toronto Mississauga

A triumph of interdisciplinary feminist rhetorical scholarship! April Cobos’s astute analysis of the tension between the official Department of Defense public language of 'gender neutrality' and 'full integration' of women into combat and the situated knowledge and embodied experiences of military women serving in hypermasculinized Explosive Ordnance and Disposal (EOD) units supplements and extends the work of feminist scholars such as Cheryl Glenn, Jacqueline Jones Royster, Gesa Kirsch, Jessica Enoch, Jordynn Jack, and others and complicates the field’s understanding of 'agency and authority, institutional power, and marginalized rhetors.' This timely publication gives voice to servicewomen who do not consider themselves 'overtly feminist or purposefully radical' and yet kairotically seize upon discursive affordances and techno-bodies to work toward institutional and societal change.

D. Alexis Hart, Allegheny College