For What Noble Cause: Cindy Sheehan and the Politics of Grief in Public Spheres of Argument

Abstract

This essay provides an analysis of the rhetoric surrounding Cindy Sheehan during the height of her popularity in August and September 2005. This analysis reveals that grief can function as a form of public argument, thus contributing a more nuanced understanding of what G. Thomas Goodnight has termed the public and personal spheres of argument. Sheehan's question—”For what noble cause did my son die?”—disrupted the cultural legibility of soldiers' wartime deaths. Although personalization strategies in the media attempted to reify the boundaries between the personal and public spheres of argument, Sheehan's calls for a public accountability for her grief opened up spaces for public deliberation and anti-war advocacy.