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.

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).

Although it is well known in other fields, the concept of “resilience” has not been addressed explicitly by feminist rhetoricians. This collection develops it in readings of rhetorical situations across a range of social contexts and national cultures. Contributors demonstrate that resilience offers an important new conceptual frame for feminist rhetoric, with emphasis on agency, change, and hope in the daily lives of individuals or groups of individuals disempowered by social or material forces. Collectively, these chapters create a robust conception of resilience as a complex rhetorical process, redeeming it from its popular association with individual heroism through an important focus on relationality, community, and an ethics of connection. Resilience, in this volume, is a specifically rhetorical response to complicated forces in individual lives. Through it, Feminist Rhetorical Resilience widens the interpretive space within which rhetoricians can work.

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.

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.

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.

Highlights feminist rhetorical practices that disrupt and surpass boundaries of time and space In 1917, Alice Paul and other suffragists famously picketed in front of the White House while holding banners with short, pithy sayings such as “Mr. President: How long must women wait for Liberty?” Their juxtaposition of this short phrase with the image of the White House (a symbol of liberty and justice) relies on the same rhetorical tactics as memes, a genre contemporary feminists use frequently to make arguments about reproductive rights, Black Lives Matter, sex-positivity, and more. Many such connections between feminists of different spaces, places, and eras have yet to be considered, let alone understood. Feminist Connections: Rhetoric and Activism across Time, Space, and Place reconsiders feminist rhetorical strategies as linked, intergenerational, and surprisingly consistent despite the emergence of new forms of media and intersectional considerations. Contributors to this volume highlight continuities in feminist rhetorical practices that are often invisible to scholars, obscured by time, new media, and wildly different cultural, political, and social contexts. Thus, this collection takes a nonchronological approach to the study of feminist rhetoric, grouping chapters by rhetorical practice rather than time, content, or choice of media. By connecting historical, contemporary, and future trajectories, this collection develops three feminist rhetorical frameworks: revisionary rhetorics, circulatory rhetorics, and response rhetorics. A theorization of these frameworks explains how feminist rhetorical practices (past and present) rely on similar but diverse methods to create change and fight oppression. Identifying these strategies not only helps us rethink feminist rhetoric from an academic perspective but also allows us to enact feminist activist rhetorics beyond the academy during a time in which feminist scholarship cannot afford to remain behind its hallowed yet insular walls.

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.

Winner, CCCC Outstanding Book Award, 2020 One of Library Journal's Top 20 Best-Selling Language Titles of 2019 In an ethnographic study spanning the last years of research collaborator and friend Susan Lundy Maute’s life with terminal breast cancer, author Jessica Restaino argues the interpretative challenges posed by research and writing amid illness and intimacy demand a methodological break from accepted genres and established practices of knowledge making. Restaino searches their experiences—recorded in interviews, informal writings, and correspondence—to discover a rhetoric of love and illness. She encourages a synthesis of methods and the acceptance of a reversal of roles—researcher and researched, writer and written-about—and emphasizes the relevancy of methodological diversity, the necessity of the personal, and the analytical richness of unpredictability and risk in being who we are in our scholarship at any given moment. Bringing together critical analysis, qualitative-style research methods, close reading, Surrender: Feminist Rhetoric and Ethics inLove and Illness resists traditional ideas about academic writing and invites others to pursue collaborations that subvert accepted approaches to representation, textual production, and subjectivity. Restaino demonstrates a way of writing—the rendering of the academic text itself—that suggests how we do our work has resonance for what we produce. She offers framing questions for use by others interested in doing similar kinds of scholarship that may frighten, overwhelm, or confound. This book deepens our understanding of subjectivity and the gains made by feminist resistance to conventional concepts of objectivity in research collaborations.