Rhetorical Drag

Presenting an examination of 17th, 18th, and 19th century American captivity narratives, this work argues that male editors and composers impersonated the women presumed to be authors of these documents. It is aimed at those interested in early American literary studies and historiography as well as women's and gender studies.

Presenting an examination of 17th, 18th, and 19th century American captivity narratives, this work argues that male editors and composers impersonated the women presumed to be authors of these documents. It is aimed at those interested in early American literary studies and historiography as well as women's and gender studies.

Theorizing women's persuasive use of masculinity, my dissertation offers five instances of female-to-male rhetorical drag; these examples as exemplars of the diversity and complexity of the "rhetoric of female-to-male drag." The chapters demonstrate that rhetorics of female-to-male drag are not only located in the performances of drag kings but also in the work of politically powerful women (Queen Elizabeth I), in the writing of culturally marginalized women (nineteenth-century African-American journalist Ida B. Wells), and appear in the institutionally-sanctioned activities of female academics such as myself. I thus emphasize the persuasive force of non-normative rhetorical expression by articulating how women have effectively appropriated spaces and approaches that historically have been available only to white, masculine, and male subjects. Consequently, the project exerts pressure on traditional understandings of rhetorical theory by arguing that the very nature of public rhetorical situations demands that women queer their rhetorical approach and performance.

Theatrical gender-bending, also called drag, is a popular form of entertainment and a subject of scholarly study. However, most drag studies do not question the standard words and ideas used to convey this performance genre. Drawing on a rich body of archival and ethnographic research, Meredith Heller illuminates diverse examples of theatrical gender-bending: male impersonation in variety and vaudeville (1860-1920); the "sexless" gender-bending of El Teatro Campesino (1960-1980); queer butch acts performed by black nightclub singers, such as Stormé DeLarverie, instigator of the Stonewall riots (1910-1970); and the range of acts that compose contemporary drag king shows. Heller highlights how, in each case, standard drag discourses do not sufficiently capture the complexity of performers' intents and methods, nor do they provide a strong enough foundation for holistically evaluating the impact of this work. Queering Drag offers redefinition of the genre centralized in the performer's construction and presentation of a "queer" version of hegemonic identity, and it models a new set of tools for analyzing drag as a process of intents and methods enacted to effect specific goals. This new drag discourse not only allows for more complete and accurate descriptions of drag acts, but it also facilitates more ethical discussions about the bodies, identities, and products of drag performers.

A nationally known scholar, essayist, and public advocate for the humanities, Michael Berube has a rapier wit and a singular talent for parsing complex philosophical, theoretical, and political questions. Rhetorical Occasions collects twenty-four of his major essays and reviews, plus a sampling of entries on literary theory and contemporary culture from his award-winning weblog. Selected to showcase the range of public writing available to scholars, the essays are grouped into five topical sections: the Sokal hoax and its effects on the humanities; cosmopolitanism, American studies, and cultural studies; daily academic life inside and outside the classroom; the events of September 11, 2001, and their political aftermath; and the potential discursive and tonal range of academic blog writing. In lively and entertaining prose, Berube offers a wide array of interventions into matters academic and nonacademic. By example and illustration, he reminds readers that the humanities remain central to our understanding of what it means to be human.

RHETORICAL LISTENING IN ACTION: A CONCEPT-TACTIC APPROACH aims to cultivate writers who can listen across differences in preparation for thinking critically, communicating, and acting across those differences. Krista Ratcliffe and Kyle Jensen offer a rhetorical education centered on rhetorical listening as it inflects other rhetorical concepts, such as agency, rhetorical situation, identification, myth, and rhetorical devices. RHETORICAL LISTENING IN ACTION spans classical and contemporary rhetoric, reading key concepts through rhetorical listening and supported by scholarship in rhetoric and composition, feminist studies, critical race studies, and intersectionality theory. The book expands on how we think about and negotiate difference and the factors that mediate social relations and competing cultural logics. Along the way, Ratcliffe and Jensen associate creative and heuristic tactics with clearly defined concepts to give all writers methods for listening rhetorically to and understanding alternative viewpoints. For writers new to the concepts of rhetorical listening, four appendices show how these concepts illuminate rhetoric, language, discourse, argument, writing processes, research, and style.

Michelle Visage is not your average diva. Powerful, positive, and polished, this diva's not only glamorous, she's a savvy businesswoman with serious credentials who works her tail off. From her days vogueing in the downtown Manhattan clubs in the '90s to her successful career in radio and her ultimate cult status as a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race, Michelle has achieved her dreams and then some! In The Diva Rules, Visage shares her rules and advice for living life to the fullest and finding success no matter the hand you're dealt. With her no-nonsense style and super sassy voice, Michelle tells readers to Keep Your Shit Together

In this lively account of the writing, publication, and legacy of the 1956 bestselling novel, "Peyton Place," Ardis Cameron tells how the story of a patricide in a small New England village became a cultural phenomenon.

In this book, the author argues for a new interpretation of the captivity narrative - one that takes into account the profound shifts in political and social authority and legitimacy that occurred in New England at the end of the 17th century.