Rhetorical Feminism And This Thing Called Hope

Rhetoric and feminism have yet to coalesce into a singular recognizable field. In this book, author Cheryl Glenn advances the feminist rhetorical project by introducing a new theory of rhetorical feminism. Clarifying how feminist rhetorical practices have given rise to this innovative approach, Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope equips the field with tools for a more expansive and productive dialogue. Glenn’s rhetorical feminism offers an alternative to hegemonic rhetorical histories, theories, and practices articulated in Western culture. This alternative theory engages, addresses, and supports feminist rhetorical practices that include openness, authentic dialogue and deliberation, interrogation of the status quo, collaboration, respect, and progress. Rhetorical feminists establish greater representation and inclusivity of everyday rhetors, disidentification with traditional rhetorical practices, and greater appreciation for alternative means of delivery, including silence and listening. These tenets are supported by a cogent reconceptualization of the traditional rhetorical appeals, situating logos alongside dialogue and understanding, ethos alongside experience, and pathos alongside valued emotion. Threaded throughout the book are discussions of the key features of rhetorical feminism that can be used to negotiate cross-boundary mis/understandings, inform rhetorical theories, advance feminist rhetorical research methods and methodologies, and energize feminist practices within the university. Glenn discusses the power of rhetorical feminism when applied in classrooms, the specific ways it inspires and sustains mentoring, and the ways it supports administrators, especially directors of writing programs. Thus, the innovative theory of rhetorical feminism—a theory rich with tactics and potentially broad applications—opens up a new field of research, theory, and practice at the intersection of rhetoric and feminism.

This book reviews major developments in feminist rhetorical studies in recent decades and explores the theoretical, methodological, and ethical impact of this work on rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies. The authors argue that there has been a dramatic shift in what is studied (diverse populations, settings, contexts, communities, etc.); how these communities are studied (methodologically, epistemologically); and how work in the field is evaluated (new criteria are required for new kinds of studies).

Feminist Rhetorical Theories offers feminist rhetorical theories developed from the works of nine feminist theorists who offer important insights into rhetoric and communication? Chris Kramarae, Bell Hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, Mary Daly, Starhawk, Paula Gunn Allen, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Sally Miller Gearhart, and Sonia Johnson. Each of the theories is explicated in terms of the nature of the world or the realm for rhetoric explicated by the theorist, the theorist's definition of feminism, the nature of the rhetor or the kind of agent the theorist sees as acting in the world, and the rhetorical options envisioned by the theorist as available to rhetors. The resulting theories of rhetoric, which are substantially different from traditional rhetorical theories, re-vision rhetoric and encourage scholars to rethink many traditional rhetorical constructs.

Long-ignored within rhetoric and composition studies, listening has returned to the disciplinary radar. Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness argues that rhetorical listening facilitates conscious identifications needed for cross-cultural communication.

Refiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students, 1865-1911 examines the work of five female teachers who challenged gendered and cultural expectations to create teaching practices that met the civic and cultural needs of their students. The volume analyzes Lydia Maria Child’s The Freedmen’s Book, a post–Civil War educational textbook for newly freed slaves; Zitkala Ša’s autobiographical essays published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1900 that questioned the work of off-reservation boarding schools for Native American students; and Jovita Idar, Marta Peña, and Leonor Villegas de Magnón’s contributions to the Spanish-language newspaper La Crónica in 1910 and 1911—contributions that offered language and cultural instruction their readers could not receive in Texas public schools. Author Jessica Enoch explores the possibilities and limitations of rhetorical education by focusing on the challenges that Child, Zitkala Ša, Idar, Peña, and Villegas made to dominant educational practices. Each of these teachers transformed their seemingly apolitical occupation into a site of resistance, revising debilitating educational methods to advance culture-based and politicized teachings that empowered their students to rise above their subjugated positions. Refiguring Rhetorical Education considers how race, culture, power, and language are both implicit and explicit in discussions of rhetorical education for marginalized students and includes six major tenets to guide present-day pedagogies for civic engagement.

In music, crossover means that a song has moved beyond its original genre and audience into the general social consciousness. Rhetorical Crossover uses the same concept to theorize how the black rhetorical presence has moved in mainstream spaces in an era where African Americans were becoming more visible in white culture. Cedric Burrows argues that when black rhetoric moves into the dominant culture, white audiences appear welcoming to African Americans as long as they present an acceptable form of blackness for white tastes. The predominant culture has always constructed coded narratives on how the black rhetorical presence should appear and behave when in majority spaces. In response, African Americans developed their own narratives that revise and reinvent mainstream narratives while also reaffirming their humanity. Using an interdisciplinary model built from music, education, film, and social movement studies, Rhetorical Crossover details the dueling narratives about African Americans that percolate throughout the United States.

Rhetoric and feminism have yet to coalesce into a singular recognizable field. In this book, author Cheryl Glenn advances the feminist rhetorical project by introducing a new theory of rhetorical feminism. Clarifying how feminist rhetorical practices have given rise to this innovative approach, Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope equips the field with tools for a more expansive and productive dialogue. Glenn’s rhetorical feminism offers an alternative to hegemonic rhetorical histories, theories, and practices articulated in Western culture. This alternative theory engages, addresses, and supports feminist rhetorical practices that include openness, authentic dialogue and deliberation, interrogation of the status quo, collaboration, respect, and progress. Rhetorical feminists establish greater representation and inclusivity of everyday rhetors, disidentification with traditional rhetorical practices, and greater appreciation for alternative means of delivery, including silence and listening. These tenets are supported by a cogent reconceptualization of the traditional rhetorical appeals, situating logos alongside dialogue and understanding, ethos alongside experience, and pathos alongside valued emotion. Threaded throughout the book are discussions of the key features of rhetorical feminism that can be used to negotiate cross-boundary mis/understandings, inform rhetorical theories, advance feminist rhetorical research methods and methodologies, and energize feminist practices within the university. Glenn discusses the power of rhetorical feminism when applied in classrooms, the specific ways it inspires and sustains mentoring, and the ways it supports administrators, especially directors of writing programs. Thus, the innovative theory of rhetorical feminism—a theory rich with tactics and potentially broad applications—opens up a new field of research, theory, and practice at the intersection of rhetoric and feminism.

In the age of multiple equity movements, it is critical to explore an unspoken nuance—the silencing of women leaders. Carrie Lynn Arnold calls attention to the history and complex dynamics that can suppress a leader’s voice while offering solutions for change. Women are taught to speak up, develop confidence, leverage their strengths, polish their interpersonal skills, widen their competencies, and fight to sit at the table. But once they make it to that executive chair, they rarely examine the unspoken dynamics that impact their success. The silencing of female voices is an all too common epidemic, preventing women from harnessing their full capabilities and leading with maximum potential. This phenomenon of isolating women by subduing their voices is a decades-old tradition. It can be impossible to avoid encounters, organizational cultures, and even feelings of self-suppression that all foster silencing. It is no longer about questioning competency or confidence. It is about understanding the complex factors and biases that are deeply embedded in relationships between men and women, amongst women, and within the dynamics of systems and the self that allows for this trend to continue despite growing successes in equity. Carrie Lynn Arnold examines silencing, which is essential to name and recognize, as a pre-requisite to effective leadership. By understanding where we have been before, we may fully appreciate and call attention to where we need to go. Regardless of your gender or whether you are an emerging leader or a CEO of a large corporation, the silencing virus is capable of infecting everyone. Silenced and Sidelined explores what it means to feel suppressed, giving words to the experience so that leaders can begin different types of conversations about voice and leadership. There are no shortcuts or simple, easy steps; this call to leadership is a call for courage. It requires the ability to communicate with a voice that carries currency—one, people will not just hear, but follow. Given the complexity of our world and the challenges society faces, we can no longer afford leaders with silenced voices.

Reveals the rhetorical strategies African American writers have used to promote Black women’s recovery and wellness through educational and entertainment genres and the conservative gender politics that are distributed when these efforts are sold for public consumption. Since the Black women’s literary renaissance ended nearly three decades ago, a profitable and expansive market of self-help books, inspirational literature, family-friendly plays, and films marketed to Black women has emerged. Through messages of hope and responsibility, the writers of these texts develop templates that tap into legacies of literacy as activism, preaching techniques, and narrative formulas to teach strategies for overcoming personal traumas or dilemmas and resuming one’s quality of life. Drawing upon Black vernacular culture as well as scholarship in rhetorical theory, literacy studies, Black feminism, literary theory, and cultural studies, Tamika L. Carey deftly traces discourses on healing within the writings and teachings of such figures as Oprah Winfrey, Iyanla Vanzant, T. D. Jakes, and Tyler Perry, revealing the arguments and curricula they rely on to engage Black women and guide them to an idealized conception of wellness. As Carey demonstrates, Black women’s wellness campaigns indicate how African Americans use rhetorical education to solve social problems within their communities and the complex gender politics that are mass-produced when these efforts are commercialized.

Sappho's prediction came true; fragments of work by the earliest woman writer in Western literate history have in fact survived into the 21st century. But not without peril. Sappho's writing remains only in fragments, partly due to the passage of time, but mostly as a result of systematic efforts to silence women's voices. Sappho's hopeful boast captures the mission of this anthology: to gather together women engaged in the art of persuasion - across differences of race, class, sexual orientation, historical and physical locations - in order to remember that the rhetorical tradition indeed includes them.