Dissociation and Visual Arguments: Creating Customers for Levy's Real Jewish Rye

Abstract

This article argues that Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-tyteca's concept of dissociation is a useful framework for exploring the interaction between texts and images in visual arguments. More specifically, I use dissociation to examine the visual argument in a series of 1950s advertisements for Levy's rye bread. I argue that the dissociative interaction between the ads' text and images expanded the market for Levy's rye, yet relied on problematic representations of Jewish identity. Nevertheless, the ads' dissociative framework allows for the campaign and its parodies to critique and expand notions of Jewish identity.