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Taylor Aline Hourigan

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Graduate Student, Communication

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Research Expertise

Gender
Political Communication
Rhetoric

Taylor Hourigan is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. She specializes in Rhetoric and Political Culture. Taylor earned her B.A. in Communication Studies from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she was a trained facilitator with the Center for Public Deliberation. Her research interests revolve around political protest and activism, specifically as carried out by young and minor-aged activists. Taylor is interested in the ways in which power, age, gender, and race intersect in the discourses of and about these activists.

Publications

Derailing the capitalist engine: theorizing relations of mujō through Mugen Train

Rhetorical analysis of the compelling critique of neoliberal capitalism in the 2020 anime film, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train

Communication

Author/Lead: Meg Itoh, Fielding Montgomery, Taylor Aline H…
Dates:

As one of the most successful pieces of transnational popular culture, we rhetorically analyze the compelling critique of neoliberal capitalism in the 2020 anime film, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train. Alongside this criticism of neoliberal capitalism, we theorize relations of mujō (無常/impermanence) found in the film, foregrounding this Buddhist principle to advance ways of being that resist neoliberal capitalist impulses. We forward three tenets that emerge in our analysis of this film: (1) recognizing that all beings are embedded within shared entanglements; (2) holding all beings responsible to serve others; (3) transcending the bounds of death by passing the torch of omoi (想い/human feeling). We argue that Mugen Train’s protagonists, the Demon Slayers, embody mujō that demonstrates how those under capitalist subjugation can only be liberated by recognizing human community grounded in such a relational ethic. We thus situate relations of mujō as a critical rhetorical theory that releases us from the neoliberal capitalist pursuit of mugen (無限/limitless).

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