BEATRIZ E. BALANTA, RACHEL L. PRICE AND IRENE V. SMALL SLIP OF THE TEETH “The insurrection at the US Capitol at the beginning of this year has been widely characterized as a grave and gross aberration, an “un-American” act of violence. Divisive debates surrounding freedom of speech and civil rights defined the previous president’s term and remain at the core of an ongoing polarization that has led to deep ideological rifts within and beyond the United States. But is the rhetoric of these debates a departure from history? In the following text, the scholars Beatriz E. Balanta, Rachel L. Price, and Irene V. Small assert that freedom of speech has always been a “figure of speech,” that is, it has belonged to a specific and limited group of bodies and it is a notoriously mutable proposition. Suturing and juxtaposing a wide range of artifacts – from loaded political symbols and speech to contemporary artworks – the authors argue for what they call a “forensics of nation.”