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May 2017

  1. Translation as a Rhetoric of Meaning
    Abstract

    From early romanticism to more recent post-structuralist and post-colonial studies, all the possibilities and impossibilities that are inherent in translation have fueled debate about authorship, intent, readership, functional equivalence, world view, the building of national literatures, power differentials, ethics, and gender issues—among many others. And, of course, about the nature of “meaning,” as the alleged sole legal tender of “all things translation.” Translation has less often been scrutinized as a form of rhetorical transaction: fundamentally, all translations are attempts, in and of themselves, to persuade their readership about some degree of correspondence with their source. However, the relationship between Translation and Rhetoric surpasses this ontological threshold of persuasion and metatextual transcendence in a far more sophisticated way, exceeding also the sheer plane of textual mechanics. This paper seeks to demonstrate how a systematic inclusion of rhetoric-centered approaches in Translation Studies, and vice versa, would cross-fertilize not just those two fields, but how it also would help to shed light on some areas where a monolingual focus has all too often imposed significant limitations to progress. It will also provide a quick overview of what I define as a “Rhetoric of Meaning in Translation Studies,” and will also explore how the study of rhetorical correspondence at the micro level in source and target languages and texts may be substantially hindered by significant structural disparities at the macro level that may have not been systematically or successfully incorporated in the wider theoretical framework of Translation Studies.

    doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1235
  2. Early Christian Rhetoric(s) In Situ
    Abstract

    ABSTRACT In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an unprecedented number of Gnostic manuscripts were unearthed at sites across Egypt. Discovered on the Cairo antiquities market, in ancient trash heaps, and in buried jars, these papyri have radically refigured the landscape of early Christian history. Rhetoric, however, has overlooked the Gnostics. Long denigrated as heretical, Gnostic texts invite historians of rhetoric to (re)consider the role of gender in the early Church, the interplay between gnōsis and contemporary rhetorical concepts, and the
development of early Christian rhetorical practice(s) within diverse historical contexts, including the Second Sophistic. In response to recent calls for rhetorical archaeology, this essay returns to Cairo, Oxyrhynchus, and Nag Hammadi. These three locations refigure early Christian rhetoric(s) in situ.

    doi:10.1080/15362426.2017.1325412
  3. Women's voices in management: identifying innovative and responsible solutions: book review
    Abstract

    Research examining women's voices in academia, women's leadership in academic and industry contexts, and their management styles in business and social spheres has been more or less steady since the late 1970s. For the last ten years, female students have accounted for approximately 57% of the students enrolled in colleges and universities around the world (Martin, 2014). Despite these enrollment numbers, female administrators in many academic institutions and non-academic businesses are still outnumbered by their male counterparts. The collection Women's Voices in Management: Identifying Innovative and Responsible Solutions edited by Helena Desivilya Syna and Carmen-Eugenia Costea asks readers to consider women's voices in different cultural and global settings, "emphasizing and materializing gender equality [...] in top management, entrepreneurship, and leadership in complex sociopolitical and culturally diverse societies" (p. 10).

    doi:10.1145/3090152.3090162
  4. Rev. of Women’s Irony: Rewriting Feminist Rhetorical Histories by Tarez Samra Graban
  5. The Cross-Cultural Power of Yuri: Riyoko Ikeda’s Queer Rhetorics of Place-Making in The Rose of Versailles
  6. Academic Leadership and Advocacy: On Not Leaning In
    Abstract

    Our article examines the challenges that “outsiders” face as academic leaders in higher education, with a special emphasis on the specific complications prevailing in the rhetoric and composition fields within English studies. We survey descriptive statistics and historical evidence to locate several of the problems confronting women and others newly and provisionally admitted to—and more often, still excluded from—the highest levels of academic leadership. Then, we bring together feminist-revisionist advocacy tools and Ernest Boyer’s alternative vision for “engaged scholarship” to suggest ways that leadership work formerly categorized as simply administrative duty or mere service be recognized for its broad-ranging impact both on campuses and the public domain.

    doi:10.58680/ce201729047

April 2017

  1. Embodying Truth: Sylvia Rivera’s Delivery ofParrhesiaat the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally
    Abstract

    Sylvia Rivera is a critical figure in queer and activist rhetorical history. At the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in 1973, Rivera engaged in parrhesia to push the movement to include and amplify the voices and needs of the most vulnerable members of the gay community: drag queens, homeless youth, gay inmates in prison and jail, and transgender people. Her delivery, including voice, gesture, and interaction with the audience, emphasizes the truthfulness, frankness, and criticism of her truth. By analyzing Rivera’s delivery of parrhesia, this article draws attention to the body’s role in speaking the truth as an activist rhetorical act.

    doi:10.1080/07350198.2017.1282224
  2. Subalternity in Juvenile Justice: Gendered Oppression and the Rhetoric of Reform
    Abstract

    The proportion of young women in the juvenile justice system has increased substantially since the nineties, yet the rhetoric surrounding them remains under-studied and under-critiqued. The oppressive nature of this rhetoric thwarts the achievement of gender equity in juvenile justice, undermining the reforms that have been recommended over years of research. The following analysis examines this rhetoric for the ways in which it silences women and furthers gendered oppression in system; it also offers critical cautions regarding existing approaches to gender-responsive programming. By acknowledging the subalternity of young justice-involved women, further studies and community collaborations can be taken up to close the distance between the actual experiences and knowledges of young women and the rhetorical constructions of them that have long informed policy, programming, and daily interaction.

    doi:10.59236/rjv17i1pp156-188
  3. One Billion Rising: Theorizing Bodies, Resistance, and Engagement in a Campus Stop Violence Against Women Movement
    Abstract

    “Walk out, dance, rise up, and demand an end to violence,” serves as a prompt for One Billion Rising, Eve Ensler’s Global V-Day: Stop Violence Against Women Movement. One Billion Rising asks women and those who love them to gather in dance, protest, and voice in a globally staged effort to demand an end to gender-based violence. This essay analyzes a One Billion Rising installation with particular focus on ways a campus community engages with and understands personal trauma as impacted by publicly staged trauma movements. Cvetkovich’s (2012) “public feelings” project and Berlant’s (2011) “cruel optimism” provide a theoretical framework to consider ways One Billion Rising constructs private bodies as representations of public opposition to violence and its aftermath. Closing thoughts consider how reproducers of civic engagement and resistance, and those most intimate with sexual violence and its trauma, interact with the One Billion Rising charge.

    doi:10.59236/rjv17i1pp133-155
  4. WIDE Research Center as an Incubator for Graduate Student Experience
    Abstract

    This article describes graduate mentorship experiences at the Writing, Information, and Digital Experience (WIDE) research center at Michigan State University and offers a stance on graduate student mentorship. It describes WIDE’s mentorship model as feminist and inclusive and as a means to invite researchers with different backgrounds to engage in knowledge-making activities and collaborate on projects. Additionally, the article explains how WIDE enables growth for its researchers, teachers, and leaders. To illustrate these ideas, the authors provide multiple perspectives across faculty mentors, former graduate students, and current graduate students in order to discuss how WIDE researchers practice mentorship and how this mentorship prepares students for future work as scholars and researchers. Finally, the article suggests ways other research centers can adapt WIDE’s approach to their own institutional context.

    doi:10.1177/0047287517692066
  5. Rewriting a Discursive Practice: Atheist Adaptation of Coming Out Discourse
    Abstract

    Coming out is a powerful way for individuals to disclose, constitute, and perform membership in stigmatized identity categories. The practice has now spread far beyond its LGBTQ origins. In this essay, I examine how atheists and other secularists have taken up and adapted coming out discourse to meet their situational and rhetorical needs. Through an analysis of 50 narratives about coming out atheist, I show that atheist writers use coming out discourse to claim both high and low agency over their identities. They both follow and resist a low-agency approach that has sometimes characterized LGBTQ uses of coming out discourse. Furthermore, I argue that the attribution of high personal agency in coming out discourse and other discourses of identity can introduce themes of deliberation, choice, and uncertainty, leading to a richer public discussion of identity category membership.

    doi:10.1177/0741088317695079

March 2017

  1. Daughters Learning from Fathers: Migrant Family Literacies that Mediate Borders
    Abstract

    Scholarship in literacy and composition studies has demonstrated the significance of family literacy practices, especially as they relate to educational experiences and achievement. Often, the literacies of migrant and refugee families are considered in terms of conflict: conflict within families, and between families and institutions. This article seeks to illuminate spaces where migrant family literacies inspire positive relations, specifically in daughter-father interactions. In this ethnographic study of Hmong women, I show that literacy alters traditional relationships between fathers and daughters, reframes disempowering gender dynamics, and supports daughters’ access to public realms. These literate interactions have lasting effects throughout daughters’ lives as they pursue education, professions, and political advocacy opportunities.

    doi:10.21623/1.5.1.2
  2. Without Touching Upon Suffrage: Gender and Economic Citizenship at the World’s Columbian Exposition
    Abstract

    The era between the Supreme Court’s (1875) Minor decision and the (1920) Anthony Amendment was marked by productive uncertainty about women’s citizenship status: they were citizens without the right to vote. This essay suggests that a handful of women seized upon the World’s Columbian Exposition to promote economic citizenship as an alternative for women. They promoted women’s economic participation in the fair’s dominant discourses of science and religion, and they rendered it a practice of citizenship in the language of republicanism and liberalism.

    doi:10.1080/02773945.2016.1238106

January 2017

  1. Jeannette Rankin, “Democracy and Government,” Carnegie Hall, New York, 2 March 1917
    Abstract

    [1] Perhaps some of you came here tonight hoping to learn something of the state that would send a woman to Congress; you may have the impression that there is something rather unusual about a state that will select a woman to be its representative in national affairs.[2] I will put you at ease at once by assuring you that Montana is unusual.[3] I am very proud of my native state. I remember when I was a small child going into town from the ranch with my mother. When we went into the store, the storekeeper greeted my mother with the news that Montana had been admitted into the Union. I remember being quite impressed with the idea that we then lived in a state. I am still thrilled by the consciousness that I live in Montana, that Montana belongs to me and I to Montana.[4] However, I hope my pride is not such that will blind me to its many shortcomings. But I trust that it is the kind of pride that will enable me to see its imperfections and spur me on to lend my services toward developing a civilization that is worthy of the great advantage given us in our natural resources, in our vastness, and in our people.[5] At first one thinks of Montana as a mineral state, perhaps because the first settlers came in with the discovery of gold or it may be because we are surpassed by only one state in the production of silver and by another in the production of copper. We produce lead and zinc and have an abundance of coal. We have precious gems, sapphires and rubies. The development of the mining industries have been so rapid and so startling that we were quite dazzled by it and forgot that the other more modest resources were even more valuable.[6] Our forests of douglas fir, western yellow pine and western larch are as beautiful as they are valuable. We have a stand of living timber of merchantable size estimated at thirty-three billion board feet.[7] When Lewis and Clark journeyed up the Missouri river on their way to the coast as the explorers of the Northwest Territory, they encountered insurmountable obstacles in what the Indians call The Great Falls. They were forced to carry their boats twenty miles over land. One of these falls they named the Black Eagle Falls in memory of the Black Eagle they saw hovering over the water. I often wonder what Lewis and Clark would think if they could see the waters of these falls being used to produce thousands of electrical horsepower and could know it was carried over the mountains starting 3,200 feet above sea level going up 5,000 feet higher and then down 2,000 feet traveling 152 miles to the destination where it turns the wheels of machinery and lights the passages of mines thousands of feet underground in one of the biggest mining camps in the world.[8] Some of the reports of my election in the Eastern papers said that I campaigned on horseback. To us, campaigning on horseback is very commonplace. We are amazed and delighted that we can reach almost every point by train or automobile. I traveled 6,000 miles by train and over 1,500 miles by automobile, but I wonder if any candidate in any other state could ride 500 miles through the mountains on an electrified train. The last Saturday night in the Primary, I spoke at Roundup, then went to bed in a comfortable sleeper and arrived at my home 380 miles distant in time for Sunday dinner.[9] Not only do we have electrified railroads, but many women have electrified kitchens. It is the unusual small town which does not boast of electricity. While we have the water power developed to the extent of two hundred thousand electrical horsepower, we have made only a beginning. We have water power enough in our state to cook every meal that is eaten, to do the hard work and heat every home if it were developed and used for the people, besides using it for the industrial purpose we generally associate with electricity.[10] But just as we are beginning to appreciate the possibilities of our water power and electricity we are discovering that we have natural gas in great quantities. Last winter was one of the severest winters we have had for many and the in the town of in the of the state for they the one had to up in the to not even the The are on the gas hundred miles in to it in their It is such a discovery and been at such distant that one even as to the possibilities of But with these the natural is the just the used for We have We have as as the state of or as are with these as Some you will have to toward the last the to so and the is the one is the that to the Last Montana enough to of for every woman and child in the hundred thousand Our of is to that of and put The of and in the and Montana the for the of at the with the idea and with the reports that Montana almost one and a as many of to the as the in the Our to the work of women as as The on the in is by a woman on of and almost of to the We for our we small and I have said of the water power is of resources, we have only made a to of we have two national The where we the into a with of Montana is because of the They from from every state in the from every in the I was in the first of the of the were from every for news and have that for every the to of I have in on in other there been a woman to native state. many such so there is of one one of the the and another the The the of Some came were Some women are there because their came and they could not be but of because they had an abundance of and and could see the in a they had that could not be in an and more and for more that they They came with their and with a to the and the that are to It been that the and women so in a The still have a very of the which women have Some can remember the women the see in the mining camps or on the in the and in the They have the women to the and the are to the One of our women at a said that that a came into and you remember at and am I do to memory a woman one to to the and to a went up the and through the over the down the other the river and the on to the town mining camps had traveled miles on horseback night was The woman the The I am I you were for the and so I I would up and you I am for have been by such but in there is women will not through to such miles may not very to us but it was a way one of my in the last a woman came up to me to that had miles to the and going that woman I came miles in a and miles in a is a miles in an and I am going I could many of the women on our the women came to their and developed We are so the beginning of We have so many in rapid that something us with hope and We are for in living in of in in We being the When I went to and that it would be an to be the first state in that of the to woman one me that they were the first state to the and they to be first in One very of that in the and been a for its The was one had the to from The for were about for the was not enough of a in the of the to a there was more I have you of some of our I will to be and you of our Our are about and with their the last of the of the is We have that our other natural resources are in the of a our water and our the more is by two and small We in other and that the is of their the we that the that the resources of our state are the the resources of the other they the resources of the and they are into other We have our with by in the state and by We have given our almost forced on for Montana had the of the which of thousands of of to the not because of the of but because many of our are made for the and of a We had when the could a for when with The was when the could over to the or the and a ranch for But from the on the ranch we have to the traveling on the these in we the of the of We of in and of of the industries that are of the state because we While the are in and they are very in and there were thousands of of The of the is not of and are very We are beginning to have we have We have of Perhaps not our of but they are We have our our is into the of and is then to the is for a ride on the train and so Our is of Our were from the where it was a to to we have the When our in and are we will still have these and women are to be and be for as When we have once for the of other will be for some way of our we are of a in the We are beginning to that the people, of the our only We can remember the which we saw with our of land. perhaps the the great of and been by the and a of which it in But the of can be It is of and national we the with our of production in such have we to the of it to have so and these the of the for a in their will be we have in in in if we are to have The first be through the they can for It is to the but it is not so The is the great of the We appreciate that the can the While there is to from an and a and of and may the for a However, we learn by our The from in are that to a more in the of to the of The is the by which we into and its been its the time that the of have been we have developed the that from the to the and the in these been the of The the the they or would their the the was given the power to for for and to be the from in of for the of work is and and the is a in into with the of the the time have had the their been for women I have it to be with to appreciate they have been Not only the many of had a a their but the of can boast of the only a I would have more I very it is to the of I was made of when an in of my to one of my to think even the When I the I was of for but in one is of so many it is to The women of are still to their and that they have to It is hard to about such a with the of on there is for the women to to think or to work for their they have the the and the that with the they have The women of have the of or not they were to their for they had of but when was it was However, then the of have given their women and will not be The women have the for the that in then they have it because they are women and have a to They have it because they are to a in be not only at the by and but in and in our national and the of are the will be to with the of our When we for a in the that in many the very of the we are not of what the have in the but we are to be to do our It is not to the to do their work and work and it is work to for the We a great about but are we we that we of we the through which the of the are made other have we the and for It to me that one of the of our civilization is When we that it is only that we have and we see and that the of their to have a still but there can be is an of the of we would have we the of is the of the We to the child an One may be in developing a higher of by a and more in through the will when they have been to The is an of and the are to the in and in or which have to do with the are going to be in when they know these are to They will see that every that in the in the or in the to do or with the They will for the when they appreciate that the is an in their which may be to their is over the can its not even the in the very what to be the of the When I went into was very that I to about woman but at first that was the in the state, and in the I if were a me I you that their just from the of the I about the their the I was very and the and the the is the of the the to have their perhaps the that will be in our national when a woman can be not only by the of women the by the of women and by the of are that the of our be I to that there is for the women to think to or to work for they have their they have the the and the that with the they have state the to for where a of the people, the do not a is not that is if we are to have a in We have the machinery by which the may be One of the and that we have in Montana is the by which a may of where is on election While Montana is a state does not us from traveling The last two election I and women in every town had their in other I a from a small town in which of a to the woman on a the carried a which for for for and to put Montana home is in was the winter in but not with using an the first every and every other was forced to be on election had the as at We have a that been of great to the on election It the of in any even the of to the is and any on election the election of the candidate for it is carried The is in the of the by that the of or for and the the of the and they are for the of in be so However, only a beginning been made a One that will the and be to the candidate it the One that will a of and an of our of is which was will be is the kind of a the is to be the machinery be such that will have a in the of the The more that is the we will to the of the Montana had a for the was to for their The of Montana are that they are of their We know we would have a in if we had a for the last for we one hundred and thousand and had only with only thousand had one in had over the of a in is even more in the just the of and just two and the of so a in the of a in be for on the of the for with the of as of and with in the thousand a state with the of only thousand at the election of would the of the that a and one one Montana a which a in in I that the in of the is but can that it are generally of or are the of some I do not for but Our that may with the of or of to for any on any the candidate may a of the on which to be and a to be on the the candidate or have in a of the and the to a of the in the last The with the The be a is by the state and to every may in in which to their and the candidate for the for the in the is to by the of the They that it is is by the that the do not for While the is for the candidate the work in the by the candidate in the may to are The to the state of two is from a the However, there are of It to me that any which does not the for a of is for any to the other any which will the to a to the will in The of some in the of by the is many thousand it was with the the is to for the great advantage that it the of the of the on the there is way to the of the for will be The will learn by its and it will learn to the more and more We have that the in our state to for on of the are some in every state an election if they had the of a and if the that they had the candidate on being could not by an these are the a great about the not into the for will into to their to the it to Our that the of the be on the was great that the would for the first two there being two at came I that I to the of Montana every time I think of I they would for the first two on the and The for our can The first two about thousand the the the thousand and the thousand the two were and the thousand The and the last were with the a that the on the is of small Some the in so that will an of at the but where the can One of our that is an over the in some is that it does not the to is given the of the At our last there were in the the in the to then was to one in the and two in the The of there being a on the of one to select a candidate in the is for there would be a time when there would be on the state or there was in the for the state on the the was so that which are for for state their there were for great advantage in the is the of being in the that are by the I I will by our last While Montana been state in the the for very in the last there were only two in the came for the candidate for and was a and a went to the women and said was a but to stand for came in first with the of for and a of the by an I came for state and national and for it from the I thousand and the candidate for had the the the so when we for purpose the were in of a forced the to put a in their the are with will that was rather a It was the of the that made such a It the to that the to to were of a of and were to their a there is to the for a there will be for will the to select by the and and they will to do it will have a to the more the of the of the people, the have the of the to the extent of for the of their the would be to some by which they over their they be or The is the which the of have used to the in the other western by While Montana been so to such a we the of it very The a by which the can the they have when or It is on the idea that an is a and can be at any The of the is more the of to the to an the is by the the can at any time so have the to the of a the are the and the is a to a from The machinery of the is very the of a are with they can by and a for from election is and at election the is a candidate and are in the The been in in the enough to its to a of the by its are It is a the very of which the of its only very it been The one the It the from to a or in that it in the power of the other it the from in of the the It a small of from and an when is the of the I of an where a of the town was by a of They to up in to The of the to be They have the if you the The not to the with their for they it was the the as an of the our for the and have The had a very on or the or by a is not in any way by the of the but it may be very through the and the and a by a of It in the of and a may be the or the other the is a any or of may a for a and when they have the of a of they may have it to the at for their or the by the may be carried to the for their going into The the the power over The of such be by the or of from the quite from the great of it is to the it in the to a of their of of are to the people, and the of a is on to the of a of the for through It a and a by the for and an for and development is One of the and been that of more to the of the When it is that by the can be by the in a or that can be if the to the the more and with they would if they there was from the of the Our are to the They their and to the of the so that their will not be through the of and The machinery by which the is by some of the of The is generally by a of are in its the which would the in the the work with a of which a of and in a an be by the work with a consciousness of the that if the is to the of the it be to the the may be not to for a in is that that will or will generally to the The first the is is to the of a of to that there is in a for the of such a as is in the a of for as the the for it is and many of the western the is by a by the state and to every not election the of the and the as it will on the with the and of the as by the and of the an to the and not only the of a into the but it a these of an is to the and an is for the development of and women are with rather with and are to their to the every a to such as to be for the and that the will to a call for when it is by a is by the of our in The a to in Montana was being by a of one of which was in of the with a The other of the were to that they the time to it The was given of the and of the would a and so on and at and a and it with the It is a of the Montana and more one election for the people, and is It would be to in a by the and a by machinery in the of is enough in the to the lead in the and not only a more in the with to but it about a more the and the have been in the of the there is a of their and an to work their It is the of Montana, and to a or the of every state, to work a of by which the power is in the as a and is by or by by I have to point some that to the more power in and even to the extent of the to the which been to the However, the great of work be by and we have that even with the and as a our are still not representative of the We are to the that the in any of the power that been but it rather in the of the of to in their idea of to its is the of the by the When we our we in many of of the by a of the people, a of in of the to the of the for the The of the election of the the the and the the of the had been in the as a of that would have to the and the of the would have and the of the to the the one and the and the still a of in to of the of of in that been in our my is the point in the of representative as and that a of the are my as an I have been by the are about in my and they have been there for the last any more hope of a representative on the of of one in the of Great in been by the of the of so that every in the state may a of or as the may The is that the state is in by from the or the the in is would be the even where are not for our to of the of the is to lead to the to in a of been which that be in the of its to the in a state which for of that of or would be to one every candidate is of and every is to one representative for a of the would be to of to as the with more or been in for some in and The of the in these been the of for the of a in and the The of is an of idea in and is with It is being and and as an of a representative The in are The of and the of the of the of and the of and are to The machinery and the work their if they are to be made to I have some of the to the in the to their of a But in is not We have in as is by the do the that the of the of and of the produce is to be It is by that the of are to be and to be not only by the of and it to of it which is but another kind of is a we into I it as a of what is that we may have in The more we reach in the more will we the time when we will a with the for and with the for

    doi:10.1080/15362426.2017.1272347
  2. From NoobGuides to #OpKKK: Ethics of Anonymous’ Tactical Technical Communication
    Abstract

    Tactical technical communication research suggests its application to social justice. However, beyond a general advocacy of anti-institutional activity, de Certeau’s notion of tactics provides no detailed ethical framework for ethically justifying tactics. In acknowledgement of this gap, this article foregrounds the ethical thought of feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero, particularly her concept of vulnerability, as a supplement for those employing tactics for social justice causes. The authors examine the technical documents produced by the hacktivist collective Anonymous.

    doi:10.1080/10572252.2016.1257743
  3. Women’s Irony: Rewriting Feminist Rhetorical Histories, Tarez Samra Graban: Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. 242 pages. $40.00 paperback
    doi:10.1080/07350198.2017.1246029
  4. Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric, Kathleen J. Ryan, Nancy Myers, and Rebecca Jones: Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. 304 pages. $45.00 paperback
    Abstract

    Rethinking Ethos extends feminist scholarship on ethos by reflecting the development in feminist philosophy from locational toward relational thinking. While the introduction extensively outlines L...

    doi:10.1080/07350198.2017.1246025
  5. Cámara Retórica: A Feminist Filmmaking Methodology for Rhetoric and Composition
    Abstract

    Winner of the 2017 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award Cámara Retórica: A Feminist Filmmaking Methodology for Rhetoric and Composition is a video book comprised of six video-essay chapters that connect film and video production, feminist filmmaking, and Rhetoric and Composition. Drawing from interviews conducted with ten faculty and graduate students in the field who produce and teach the production of moving images, as well as original footage and clips created by rhetoricians and filmmakers, Cámara Retórica weaves a visual and aural tapestry that performs the kind of feminist, moving-image scholarship it argues can be transformative for Rhetoric and Composition.

  6. Cámara Retórica A Feminist Filmmaking Methodology for Rhetoric and Composition
  7. A Feminist Approach to Social Media
    Abstract

    In this webtext, Hidalgo and Grimes respond to Kristine Blair’s call to make online spaces more hospitable to women’s social professional and political goals by developing six social media guidelines rooted in feminism. They argue that feminism provides key insights on how to create online communication styles that foster positive and productive interactions.

2017

  1. From Boys to Men: Rhetorics of Emergent American Masculinity , by Leigh Ann Jones
  2. Let’s Disagree (to Agree): Queering the Rhetoric of Agreement in Writing Assessment
    Abstract

    This article describes and theorizes a failed writing program assessment study to question the influence of “the rhetoric of agreement,” or reliability, on writing assessment practice and its prevalence in validating institutional mandated assessments. Offering the phrase “dwelling in disagreement” as a queer perspective, the article draws on expertise theory and notions of ambience and attunement in rhetorical scholarship to illustrate the complexity, unpredictability, and disorder of the teaching and assessment of writing. Adopting a queer sensibility approach, the article marginally disrupts “success” as assumed by order, efficiency, and results in writing assessments and explores how scholars might reimagine ideas, practices, and methods to differently understand a queer rhetoricity of assessment and learning.

  3. Generating the Field: The Role of Editors in Disciplinary Formation
    Abstract

    In the following conversation, conducted asynchronously through email, three current and former editors discuss the role of publishing in creating a disciplinary identity. Speaking from the academic (Villanueva), digital (Selfe), and community (Parks), and, often crossing these three categories, the editors discuss how the field has failed to fully embrace the full range of cultural, economic, and gender experiences that have been present in our field since its founding. In doing so, they also note that this absence has continued despite the ability of new publishing technologies to incorporate a wider range of embodied experiences, non-traditional knowledges, and literacy practices.

  4. Review of Shari J. Stenberg’s Repurposing Composition: Feminist Interventions for a Neoliberal Age

December 2016

  1. Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and Feminism, 1973–2000
    doi:10.14321/rhetpublaffa.19.4.0705
  2. 2016 CCCC Chair’s Address: Making, Disrupting, Innovating
    Abstract

    0Make, O Muse...0.1 Knowing I was speaking about disruption, I thought what's more disruptive than playing punk music for an academic talk? So I played punk for you. I'll play some more punk for you after the talk. It's hard to be complacent when you listen to punk. If you want, stick that in your head as the soundtrack for today's talk. Punk and disruption may also produce in your mind's eye the image of friends working in a garage or the basement, and I encourage you to keep that image in your head, because whether they're taking a new approach to rock and roll or inventing the Apple computer, the garage tinkerer and inventor is our muse today as we reflect on making disruptive and innovative action in our discipline and our organization.1CCCC1.01 I've been coming to the C's for a long time, since I was a graduate student in the '80s. For me (like many of you, I'm sure), the CCCC is a natural academic home. And it's easy to see why: a wide range of pedagogical approaches visible in the program, all our theories on display, varied interests (FYC, creative nonfiction, creative writing, linguistics, rhetorical theory, history, technical and professional writing), and a general concern about writing both in the classroom and in society. The convention has one of the friendliest and most helpful group of members in higher education. It's a culture of fun (witness C's the Day and its Sparkleponies), and a culture of sharing and learning, where most of us are like Chaucers Clerk in that would we [all] learn and gladly teach1.02 We have an acceptance rate that's stingy-but not too stingy- so that we can put a lot of people on the program. There are workshops on Wednesdays, and we serve as a magnet for other organizations such as TYCA, ATTW, and WPA-GO to meet at the same general time.1.03 And during this same span of time that I've been coming to our convention (which is, unbelievably, almost thirty years), I have seen the C's take steady and meaningful steps to become more than a guild of writing teachers and researchers, but also an organization committed to openness, access, inclusivity:We have established travel and research scholarships that are designed to enable travel to and participation in the convention for both international and domestic scholars who may not have travel support from their institutions. These awards, along with reduced registration fees, have benefited a host of traditionally marginalized scholars, including contingent faculty, graduate students, retired members, Latin American scholars, tribal fellows, LGBTQ scholars, among others. And the one that started it all, the Scholars for the Dream in 1993, includes membership in NCTE/CCCC, travel assistance, and mentoring to help foster future leaders in our organization.We have an inclusive leadership structure, where elected positions on the executive committee, nominating committee, and chair rotation are broadly representative of the diversity of our organization. And we continue to evolve in this respect. Did you know, for example, that we have in the last five years added elected positions on the EC for graduate students and contingent faculty?What sort of new discussions are possible in governance with broader representation?We have created and supported research throughout our organization, rewarding scholars at all levels, from our undergraduate posters to graduate students, our book and article awards, and our wildly successful research initiative.We have taken steps to ensure inclusivity without regard to rank, tenure, job title, or type of institution. We feature undergraduate research posters, a graduate student on the EC, a thriving cross-generational (XGEN) initiative, and SIGs for grad students and retired professors. The program includes papers and roundtables from graduate students, adjunct and contingent faculty, tenure-track faculty, non-academic or alt-ac practitioners-from private institutions, two-year, four-year, regional universities, and R1's. …

    doi:10.58680/ccc201628886

November 2016

  1. blah blah WOMEN blah blah EQUALITY blah blah DIFFERENCE
    Abstract

    Abstract In this article I critically consider the usefulness of Jacques Rancière's “politics of literarity,” as explicated by Samuel Chambers, for understanding feminist politics. Emphasizing the historical and grammatical dimensions of the speech acts central to a politics of literarity, I show that women's assertions of gender injustice remain tightly tethered to a police order whose disruption remains crucial to establishing the political bona fides of any such claim to equality. While Chambers embraces this paradoxical aspect of a politics of literarity—that it both disrupts police and remains embedded within it—I suggest that the paradoxes confronted by those who articulate the “wrongs” of the gender order perforce raise questions about the adequacy of literarity as a linchpin of democratic politics. I elaborate this claim by reconsidering the historical example of Olympe de Gouges, first as her feminist speech is parsed by Joan Scott and second as it is parsed by Rancière.

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.49.4.0408
  2. Quarreling with Rancière: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Democratic Disruption
    Abstract

    AbstractThis article contests Jacques Rancière's disinclination to theorize the gendered, sexual, racial, colonial, and other fields of power that dramatically shape contemporary possibilities for democratic disruptions. Drawing on Samuel Chamber's book The Lessons of Rancière (2013), I sketch out Rancière's account of democratic politics as dissensus, conflict, and rupture by particularly emphasizing his compelling notion of democratic quarreling and use it to illuminate disruptive practices within the U.S. civil and welfare rights movements. As valuable and productive as Rancière's ideas are, I nonetheless argue that his reluctance to heed the lessons offered by critical race scholars, postcolonial critics, feminists, and others about how histories of racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and colonialism influence who remains uncounted or miscounted perpetuates the all-too-common tendency of Western theorizing from an unacknowledged center. I conclude with reflections on the politics of polemicizing and Rancière's recent elevation within the worlds of political philosophy and political theory.

    doi:10.5325/philrhet.49.4.0420
  3. Performing Feminist Action: A Toolbox for Feminist Research & Teaching
  4. Review Essay – Rethinking Recovery Work: New Directions in Feminist Histories of Rhetoric
  5. Feminist Fissures: Navigating Conflict in Mentoring Relationships
  6. Women and Corporate Communication in the Early American Republic
  7. Leaning In to Discomfort: Preparing Literacy Teachers for Gender and Sexual Diversity
    Abstract

    Educational literacy scholars have demonstrated the rich possibilities of the English language arts, and of queer-inclusive and critical literacy practices in particular, to disrupt heteronormativity and affirm gender and sexual diversity (GSD). However, there are few empirical studies that report what’s involved in preparing literacy teachers to organize classrooms in which recommendations for inclusive practice can land safely. In this article, we provide an account of what happened when we endeavored to prepare a group of secondary preservice literacy teachers for GSD-inclusive education in the context of a university-based literacy methods course and the negotiation of discomfort that ensued. Drawing on queer theoretical perspectives and Kumashiro’s (2001) framework of anti-oppressive education—which figures an important relationship among the concepts of desire, resistance, and crisis in unlearning common sense—we explore how the methods curriculum put many students into a state of emotional crisis. The sources of participants’ discomfort included learning that teachers have been complicit with the oppression of queer youth and wrestling with questions about how to bring their commitments to GSD-inclusive literacy instruction to bear in practice. Our findings suggest that participants who were willing to move toward their discomfort—what we call a deliberate move to lean in—positioned themselves to become strong advocates for queer youth. We argue that emotional discomfort should be figured as a productive tension in queer interventions in English education. Toward that end, we offer leaning in as a generative tool for grappling with the dynamics of heterosexism, homophobia,and broader oppression.

    doi:10.58680/rte201628875

October 2016

  1. Rhetoric in American Anthropology: Gender, Genre, and Science, by Risa Applegarth: Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014. x + 267 pp. $26.95 (paper)
    doi:10.1080/02773945.2015.1061851
  2. Composing Artificial Intelligence: Performing Whiteness and Masculinity
    Abstract

    “This analysis suggests that, in order to interrupt the injustices that flourish in Silicon Valley and in tech culture, we must rhetorically and systematically disentangle masculinity and whiteness from intelligence.”

  3. Ms/Use of Technology
    Abstract

    The purpose of this article is to share how classroom incorporation of technology with feminist pedagogy in mind both elicited and constrained learning opportunities in a large, blended class setting. Technology selection, assignment revision, and changes to teaching practices are addressed. We conclude with recommendations for teachers facing similar circumstances.

    doi:10.1215/15314200-3600813
  4. Narrative Inquiry in Human-Centered Design: Examining Silence and Voice to Promote Social Justice in Design Scenarios
    Abstract

    Human-centered design is a burgeoning field of study that has the potential to work toward actively creating more just and equitable technology design while critically interrogating the design process. To do this, human-centered design needs to consider making social justice aims a primary objective and end-goal in design. One way of integrating social justice aims into design is to employ the use of narrative inquiry. This article explores an alternative method for developing design scenarios using narrative inquiry and the feminist concepts of silence and voice as a way to promote considerations of social justice and inclusion in design. Using narrative inquiry to rethink certain aspects of the design process can help designers address issues of agency. The methodological focus of this article responds to Suchman’s call for “alternative visions” of how technology production and design can be undertaken.

    doi:10.1177/0047281616653489
  5. Gender/Genre: The Lack of Gendered Register in Texts Requiring Genre Knowledge
    Abstract

    Some studies have found characteristics of written texts that vary with author gender, echoing popular beliefs about essential gender differences that are reinforced in popular works of some scholarly authors. This article reports a study examining texts ( N = 193) written in the same genre—a legal memorandum—by women and men with similar training in production of this type of discourse—the first year of U.S. law school—and finds no difference between them on the involved–informational dimension of linguistic register developed by Biber. These findings provide quantitative data opposing essentialist narratives of gender difference in communication. This essay considers relevance theory as a framework for understanding the interaction, exhibited in this and previous studies, of genre knowledge and gendered communicative performances.

    doi:10.1177/0741088316667927

September 2016

  1. Social Media in Business and Professional Communication Courses: A Survey of Student Preferences
    Abstract

    Students raised with pervasive technology are believed to have developed skills and ways of thinking that require new approaches to education. Often, social media is lauded as the answer, but a large gap remains in understanding student preferences regarding social media in courses. We uncover those preferences with data obtained from an anonymous survey of 368 students in large lecture classes. Our research focuses on social media preferences as well as differences in major, gender, and experience with social media for coursework. We discuss three lessons that can be applied immediately and suggestions for future research.

    doi:10.1177/2329490615628017
  2. The Rhetoric of Plato’s Republic : Democracy and the Philosophical Problem of Persuasion
    Abstract

    In a demanding engagement, James L. Kastely offers an exquisite reading, even revision, of the Republic, and through nuanced attention to form, absences, and tangents he begins to answer a methodological question that I have had for a while (Lyon). The Gorgias ends with a failed elenchus, when no one will continue, and then in a methodological shift after the Republic’s first chapter, Plato makes explicit his dissatisfaction with elenchus. Rather than ignore what seemingly stopped Plato twice, Professor Kastely explicates a new, more dialogical method by reading the Republic as rhetorical theory (x, xii). The new method and theory are performed in answering the question of whether it possible to have a political discourse that is not simply a displaced pursuit of private interest (3). Through meticulous reading, Kastely explicates Plato’s rhetorical method from the movement between the performative, mimetic Republic, which concedes the multitude, and the ideal, contemplative Kallipolis, which unifies everything, even gender.Between the two, Kastely locates Platonic persuasion: “Persuasion … can be extended and deepened to being understood as the opportunity and responsibility to shape one’s identity. Persuasion now can be understood as a practice of individual and political constitution” (220).Constituting persuasion does not manipulate the other, but works to change desire and the internal constitution of the individual. That is, this persuasion remakes desires, values, and identities (Frankenstein’s operation). Kastely considers reconstitution as dialogic and participatory and thus better than manipulative, orator-centric persuasion in that re-constitutive persuasion alters and expands “our understanding of what constitutes political discourse” to include foundational values (10–11). Intriguing as this is, I need further evidence for the dialogic nature of constituting persuasion, particularly because it is not achieved through deliberation, but through erasing alternative desires. Given Socrates’ discursive control, belief in Plato’s commitment to dialogue remains difficult, and when I consider the two states together, the Republic and Kallipolis, I instead find that the new method arises through doubleness, a double logos that destabilizes wisdom and sends a frustrated, skeptical reader questing. I offer two examples of Plato’s unresolvable doubleness.In addition to passive spectators, Kastely notes “the creators of discourse” and “the audiences who can listen to or read that discourse with a critical awareness” (xiii). He then develops a theory of cultural criticism for the non-philosopher, but the hierarchy of the philosopher and non-philosopher creates a doubleness, demanding critique from Plato’s critical readers. Even critical readers are not creators of discourse (rhetoricians?): readers do not represent their desires or create discourse, nor do they constitute their own identity or the state’s. Perhaps Kastely finds evidence for Plato’s constitution of “an audience who can rethink its cultural heritage” (80), but would truly critical readers accept the privilege of philosophers who deny their ability to create? The binary of reading and creating seemingly would frustrate truly critical readers. Would they not desire to create?Another doubleness: If mimesis is banned from the ideal state of Kallipolis, then what is its place in the performance of the state of Republic? Kastely writes mimesis into the state, reading The Republic as epic poetry, and hence he reads the dialogic state of Republic in relationship and preference to the monologic Kallipolis. Yet critical ironies abound in the tension between the imagined Kallipolis and the narrated, multifaceted state of Republic. Let me quickly, and perhaps fairly, trace Kastely’s argument for mimesis. He sees Plato’s difficulty with imitative poetry as an interpretive tension between mimetic entertainment and rhetorical, critical reading, writing “(t)o read the Republic rhetorically requires a reader to go beyond the surface and to understand the issues that the surface text both represents and distorts” (112). Ignoring the critique of poetry as counterfeit reality, Kastely argues that the right kind of reading leads to philosophical truth. Mimesis works pedagogically: in the Republic, “the rhetorical action of the dialogue” is “an enactment of persuasion that provides guidance on how to use poetry rhetorically to effect practical and individual change” (62). That is, the audience should read the Republic’s mimesis as an enactment of persuasive technique, not as drama, for Plato would “undo or minimize” cultural influences by acknowledging the rhetoricity of all discourse (79, 101). In Kastely’s epic Republic, readers engage the dialogue’s narrative, and it “educate(s) them on how to interrogate works of cultural rhetoric” (62). Readers thus become suspicious of the forces shaping their souls, moving away from shared culture toward self-cultivation. But do rhetorical reading and self-cultivation save mimesis? Do they respond to or change common culture? Can’t self-cultivation remove a citizen from common concerns and the polity? Is rhetorical reading the controlled action by which critical readers are separated from the creators of discourse? Doesn’t reception differ from production?Kastely appreciates Plato’s desire for a skeptical reader, and his rhetorical reader is a provocative concept, but he tends to interpret the Republic through dialogic resolution and logical consistency. Might I suggest that Plato is sometimes better read sophistically through contradiction, paradox, and bivalence? In doubleness, Plato violates his own dictates. For example, Socrates defends true philosophers through a tale of low, counterfeit reality. He tells the silly tale of a blind, deaf, and ignorant ship owner faced with sailors wrangling to be captain (488). Seeking the job, the argumentative sailors deny any need for knowledge of sailing. Consequently a false definition—captain as a windbag—emerges. Plato calls this analogy, compiled “out of lots of different elements, like the goat-stags and other compound creatures painters come up with” (488a). Analogy perhaps, but also narrative, full of bad behaviors (including murder), an extreme counterfeit reality: in offering such a tale, Plato assumes his audience is already able to critique mimesis, avoid categorical mistakes, and modulate their identifications with bad characters. He assumes that the dialogic pedagogy has worked or is unnecessary, and perhaps he tests our skeptical ability to read goat-stag extremes.Kastely’s systemic reading of the entire Republic brilliantly draws attention to Plato’s performative method, revitalizing and embodying Platonic rhetoric, but it understates Plato’s doubleness, playfulness, puzzlement, and skepticism. Plato, with his longing for total revolution and his fractured fairy tales, is the writerly critic of writing; the dramatic censor of plot, setting, and character; and the myth-teller who denounces mimesis. Given Plato’s denials and dissatisfactions, his doubleness, tensions, and contradictions, Kastely rightly reads him for performance and rhetoricity and wisely confronts the two states, Kallipolis and Republic. Without a doubt, this book begins another millennium of Platonic delight.

    doi:10.1080/15362426.2016.1234153
  3. Watching Women’s Liberation 1970: Feminism’s Pivotal Year on the Network News
    doi:10.14321/rhetpublaffa.19.3.0527

July 2016

  1. Painted Lady: Aspasia in Nineteenth-Century European Art
    Abstract

    Despite pioneering reclamation efforts, feminist rhetoricians have only scratched the surface of the multilayered historical reception and representation of Aspasia, a fifth-century BCE Milesian woman famous for the company she kept. Aspasia's penchant for historical perseverance means that her recovery must extend far beyond the ancient world. Throughout the centuries roused by the so-called Woman Question, she was on the lips and brush-tips of many on the lookout for antecedent and analogous women to serve as models or antimodels. Focusing on nineteenth-century Europe, we illustrate her powerful presence in art. Our discussion showcases Aspasia conversing (Nicolas-André Monsiau), instructing (Honoré Daumier), and contemplating (Henry Holiday). In their work Aspasia resists attempts to mute her colors and reemerges as a painted lady.

    doi:10.1080/07350198.2016.1178688
  2. Award-Winning Annotated Bibliography!
    Abstract

    Present Tense would like to congratulate Matthew B. Cox and Michael J. Faris for being accepted into The Best of the Independent Rhetoric & Composition Journals, 2015 (Parlor Press). Their annotated bibliography, “An Annotated Bibliography of LGBTQ Rhetorics,” was published in Vol. 4 Iss. 2. Congrats!

  3. Using Antenarrative to Uncover Systems of Power in Mid-20th Century Policies on Marriage and Maternity at IBM
    Abstract

    In this article, we use extant International Business Machines' internal communications to demonstrate how Boje’s notion of “antenarrative” can serve as a methodology for feminist historiography and as a way of uncovering forgotten and unchallenged systems of power and legitimacy in technical and professional communication. The antenarrative fragments of any official, sanctioned story give us insight into the ways in which power has been distributed throughout an organization and where agency can be claimed in real time. We also see that a methodology that considers the untold and unofficial stories of women in the workplace works to explain current distributions of power. This can be done by investigating the antenarratives that threaten to disrupt the prepackaged grand narrative of organizations; we show this specifically through a case study of International Business Machines' archival memos in contrast with the company’s website and public relations documents.

    doi:10.1177/0047281616639473

June 2016

  1. Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks
    Abstract

    Book Review| June 01 2016 Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks. By Jordynn Jack. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014; pp. 320. $95.00 cloth; $30.00 paper. Jennifer A. Malkowski Jennifer A. Malkowski California State University, Chico Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2016) 19 (2): 353–356. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.19.2.0353 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jennifer A. Malkowski; Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2016; 19 (2): 353–356. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.19.2.0353 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2016 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved.2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

    doi:10.14321/rhetpublaffa.19.2.0353

May 2016

  1. Leviathan and the Breast Pump: Toward an Embodied Rhetoric of Wearable Technology
    Abstract

    In this essay, I develop a feminist framework for analyzing wearable technologies as embodied rhetorics, one that considers (1) how wearable technologies enable micro-performances of gender, status, and identity; (2) how wearable technologies are embedded in policy/political frameworks as well as scientific/medical ones; (3) how wearable technologies are embedded in spatiotemporal networks of actors, objects, and so on; and (4) how the design of technological objects themselves do or do not live up to the promises of wearability and mobility. Using an analysis of the breast pump as my case and drawing from interviews with women about their experiences, I show how the breast pump crystallizes a network of rhetorics that is both disruptive and productive of gendered differences. In particular, the breast pump presents rhetorical arguments for returning to work soon after childbirth while performing a professional role. At the same time, this technology makes an argument for including nursing bodies on college campuses, spaces that have not historically considered those bodies or their needs.

    doi:10.1080/02773945.2016.1171691
  2. Confessional Crises and Cultural Politics in Twentieth-Century America
    Abstract

    When I first learned of Dave Tell’s project, I expected his book to be dominated by religious exegesis. I suspect I am hardly alone in this assumption. Nowhere is confession a more preeminent and slavish requirement than in religious practice, specifically in the Judeo-Christian idioms that dominate the American psyche, and our blind(ing) faith in religion’s standard of confession affects the public’s consumption of media. Consider American Crime Story (FX) portraying the O.J. Simpson trial, Confirmation (HBO) about the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Making a Murderer (Netflix), a documentary series on the trials of Steven Avery, or Serial, a podcast series—the fastest to garner 5 million downloads—covering the murder of Hae Min Lee for which Adnan Syed was convicted. The popularity of these shows manifests the ubiquity of what Tell calls “confessional hermeneutics,” the “collaborative but always contested activity of deciding which texts do, and which texts do not, qualify as confessions” (3). In Confessional Crises and Cultural Politics in Twentieth-Century America, Tell outlines various forms of confessional hermeneutics to foreground the cultural significance of confession.The point Tell drives home repeatedly is that confession matters; it is a critical cog in the machinery of American social life. In the twentieth-century, Tell finds that confessional hermeneutics “concretely shaped the public understanding of six intractable issues: sexuality, class, race, violence, religion, and democracy” (4). Understanding confession’s role relative to these six crucial cultural topoi requires “those of us invested in public discourse to understand the confession, not as a stable, ahistorical form, but as a practice informed by competing traditions” (144). Failing to do so risks ignoring the “genre politics” (183) that make confession “a powerful but volatile political resource” (187), an “important, if often overlooked form of cultural intervention” (184). To support this argument, Confessional Crises rehearses six key confessional crises spanning the twentieth-century: Bernarr Macfadden’s 1919 launch and subsequent transformation of True Story; William Huie’s 1956 publication of the confessions of Emmett Till’s murderers; the publication in 1967 of William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner; and the confession controversies sparked by Jimmy Swaggart and Bill Clinton. For Tell, cultural politics trump generic constraints: each case illustrates that “the rhetorical function of a confession is determined more by the political needs of the confessant than by the formal features of the text” (124).Take, for example, chapter one on the subjective sexual moralism in Macfadden’s launch of True Story magazine. As Tell recounts, Macfadden reasoned that the best way to inoculate the public against sexual malaise was by presenting them with the unvarnished truth about sex. For Americans to avoid the sexual pitfalls Macfadden adduced to ignorance and scripted silences around the body, “the American people needed a moral reeducation” on matters of sexuality and “just as insistently that they needed a rhetorical reeducation” (28). Why the rhetorical reeducation? Because Macfadden needed real-life stories to advance his moral-political agenda. Through sidebars and editorials, Macfadden coached readers on how to read the stories he published as authentic accounts of ordinary people. The arrangement was straightforward: the “unvarnished prose guarantee[d] the authenticity of the tales, and the authenticity of the tales guarantee[d] the propagation of moral virtue” (41). Frank testimony about bodily fantasies and functions was Macfadden’s antidote to ignorance about sexual matters.In the 1930s, Tell finds that Macfadden pivoted from sexual politics to class politics, changing the import of confession. This is the story of chapter two. As millions battled the scourge of the depression, True Story began to foreground “a well-remunerated working class, the desires of which True Story perfectly expressed” (47). Why would as staunch a moralist as Macfadden engage in such a mendacity? Herein lies the re-conscription, Tell holds, of confession, except this time with capitalism not moralism as the telos. Macfadden needed to transform his readership into a consumer class so he could sell access to advertisers. Just as he had instructed the public in the appreciation of plain speech, Macfadden directed his rhetorical pedagogy at America’s captains of industry: “he told executives that if they squinted just right, if they learned to read True Story properly, they could see between the lines of his true stories millions of affluent, docile and eager, consumers” (55). Using Macfadden’s example, Tell articulates confession to both sexual and class politics.Or take the controversies about William Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner, the subject of chapter four, which Tell uses to connect confession to the politics of violence. Two arguments about the reception of Styron’s Confessions form the vectors of this connection. First is that whether one deemed Styron’s book an expression of Turner’s admission turned less on the fidelity of Styron’s content to Turner than it did on the politics of the different respondents. At stake was how one understood the nature of slavery and the status of the African-American within it: “was the American slave a ‘Sambo,’ a happy-go-lucky, bumbling fool, given to petty thievery but fundamentally docile” owing either to racial inferiority (as Ulrich Phillips believed) or to slavery’s brutality (as Stanley Elkins and Styron held), “or was the slave a seething embodiment of resentment, incensed by the brutality of the ruling class and prone to rebellion” as Herbert Aptheker argued? (99). Differences of opinion on these matters framed the contested reception of Confessions. Second is that differences of opinion between White defenders of Styron and his Black critics were based in competing ideologies about “the legibility of violence” (112). For many White reviewers of Confessions, violence was simply beyond understanding. They wondered, “what could have prompted someone to lead a rebellion so violent?” (106). Enter confession: “only confession—an insider’s account—could possibly redress so profound a mystery” (106). “For Styron’s black critics,” however, “Turner’s rebellion was perfectly legible” (112). The formerly colonized and enslaved required no special erudition, no fancy literary conceit, to understand the rebellion. Confessions, to these critics, read instead as Styron’s confession to imbibing “the fantasies of the southern tradition” (115) that sanitized the violence of slavery while exaggerating that of slaves like Turner. Confessional Crises thus associates confession, through a postcolonial hermeneutic, to violence.Readers of AHR will appreciate the theoretical history Tell brings to bear in his analyses of Jimmy Swaggart and Bill Clinton, the subjects of chapters five and six. Yes, argues Tell, Swaggart fashioned, with the aid of the leadership of the Assemblies of God, a confession he and his allies presented as a Christian confession. The imbroglio he found himself in demanded that. Yet despite appearances, Swaggart’s, Tell insists, was no Christian confession. Instead, Swaggart’s apology bore the blueprint of a distinctly modern secular confession. Specifically, “his emphasis on the inadequacy of speech, his devaluation of grammatical sensibilities and logical coherence, and his emphasis on his humanity” (136) constituted Swaggart’s rhetoric as a modern secular confession. To prove this point, Tell contrasts the genealogies of classical-Christian confession (123-4; 129-30) and modern secular confession (130-36). By retracing to Periclean Athens those tenets of classical confession that were eventually appropriated by Christianity, this discussion carefully historicizes confession in religion and politics. But this retracing also exposes the Athenian-Augustinian model of confession Tell endorses to criticisms first raised by feminist and critical race scholars. If Augustine’s Roman Empire and contemporary America attest that confession can function as “a means of reversing the political currents of pridefulness” (130), both societies also evince the limits of that power. What confession, whose confession, could have challenged the pride that drove slavery and genocide in the Roman Empire, or “shock-and-awe,” the “New Jim Crow,” and the FISA court in the American?In chapter six, which focuses on the crisis ignited by the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, Tell isolates confession’s function in democracy. Re-contextualizing Clinton’s rhetorical performances of 1998 in light of statements Clinton made during the Gennifer Flowers controversy in 1991-92, Tell credits the president with showcasing the ideal of democratic public confession, a “belief that public confession must hold in equipoise the competing needs of contrition and legal argument” (162). Prosecutor Kenneth Star and the many critics of Clinton’s vexatious semantics upheld an established tradition of confession, one in which, “only an unlimited admission of guilt counted as a confession” (162). Confession, the reader learns, influences how the public understands politics.By the end of Confessional Crises, the reader has gathered an expansive vocabulary for understanding the power of confessional practices. But how to assess a project so expansive, so revisionist, and transdisciplinary? Let me end by returning to the beginning. The introduction of Confessional Crises advertises the book as “the first reception history of confession,” (6) acknowledging the influence of Steven Mailloux. This hat-tip points us to Mailloux’s ambitious project for criteria by which to judge Confessional Crises. Since Mailloux explains that “Reception history is rhetorical hermeneutics” (ix), readers can thus pose Mailloux’s famous definition of rhetorical hermeneutics as a question of Confessional Crises: does it use “rhetoric to practice theory by doing history” (ix)? Anyone who reads Confessional Crises will find that in it, Tell fulfills this tripartite obligation elegantly. He relies on discourse, develops fresh ideas about confession, and generates a record of the past.

    doi:10.1080/15362426.2016.1187526
  3. An Essay on Current Quintilian Studies in English, With a Select Bibliography of Items Published Since 1990
    Abstract

    It is important to begin this essay with a note about language. The international scope of Quintilian studies is evidenced by the number of European languages used to discuss him—German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, as well as English. Two major recent collections of studies about Quintilian are written mainly in continental languages. The larger is the three-volume Quintiliano: Historia y Actualidad de la Retórica edited by Tomás Albaladejo, Emilio del Río, and José Antonio Caballero López; it includes 123 essays mostly in Spanish but with some French and English. The work stems from an international conference held in Madrid and in Calahorra, Spain (Quintilian’s birthplace) to commemorate the 1900th anniversary of the publication of the Institutio Oratoria. Another collection is Quintilien: ancien et moderne (2012), edited by Perrine-Ferdinand Galand, Carlos Lévy and Wim Verbaal, with thirty-one essays in French. These are largely inaccessible to monophone English speakers, as are some important individual studies such as Gualtiero Calboli, Quintiliano y su Escuela; Otto Seel, Quintilian: oder, die kunst des Redners und Schweigens; or Jean Cousin, Récherches sur Quintilien.The reader of this essay, then, should be aware that the English works discussed here are but a small part of a wider international undertaking. The numbers, too, are worth noting. For example, the online Quintilian bibliography by Thorsten Burkard of Kiel University in Germany lists 847 items arranged in fourteen subject sections, while the World Catalog displays 5,179 records (of which 1,896 are in English) and the Melvyl search engine for University of California libraries finds 1,125 Quintilian entries in that system alone. The first (and only) bibliography of Quintilian published in America, in 1981, was that of Keith V. Erickson in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, listing nearly 800 books and articles alphabetized by author. Thus what we discuss here is in a sense only the tip of a scholarly iceberg.The best single short introduction to Quintilian is an essay by Jorge Fernández López, “Quintilian as Rhetorician and Teacher,” in A Companion to Roman Rhetoric. Fernández López presents a balanced view of what Quintilian has in mind in his Institutio Oratoria, with sections on biography, the meaning and structure of the Institutio, early education, the system of rhetoric, style, the orator in action, and the author’s approach to rhetoric and morals.One of the most important recent contributions to making Quintilian text accessible was the publication in 2001 of Donald A. Russell’s edition and translation of his Institutio Oratoria in a five-volume Loeb Classical Library set. The previous Loeb translation was by H. E. Butler in 1921–22 in four volumes. Russell’s smooth translation and more extensive notes make his work superior to that of Butler. Russell makes adroit use of sentence variety and punctuation to make his translation more readable than Butler’s, which tends to follow more literally Quintilian’s often periodic style with its long multi-clausal sentences. Also, Butler had provided only two short indices of “Names and Words” in the Institutio, with comparatively few notes to the text itself, while Russell supplies copious notes to virtually every page of the text; in addition he completes the whole set at the end of Volume Five with an “Index of Proper Names,” and Indexes to Books 1–12 which include a 33-page “General Index.” an “Index to Rhetorical and Grammatical Terms,” and an “Index of Authors and Passages Quoted.” Moreover, Russell provides an introduction to each of the twelve books that includes a summary of that book’s contents—a valuable resource for the reader struggling to cope with the sheer magnitude of the Institutio. It is the addition of these new notes and the 100 pages of indexes at the end that make the Russell longer than the Butler, but the value to the reader makes it worthwhile.Also new is the appearance of the first one-volume translation of the Institutio, a print version of the translation by John Selby Watson (1856) as revised and edited online by Lee Honeycutt (2007) and edited for print by Honeycutt and Curtis Dozier in 2015. The 686-page paperback is available for purchase under the title Quintilian: Institutes of Oratory, or, Education of an Orator, and is also available online. The volume includes Watson’s own “Preface” and “Life of Quintilian,” together with a twenty-five page summary of the Institutio, by book and chapter, keyed to the page numbers of the translation. (These chapter headings are then repeated throughout the volume.) There are none of Watson’s notes to the translation, Honeycutt explains, because they were omitted to save space for fitting it into the one volume; he recommends that the reader consult Russell’s notes. Despite that problem, this one-volume translation may be useful to readers for its portability and low cost compared to the five-volume Loeb Library translation of Russell.Tobias Reinhardt and Michael Winterbottom have edited Quintilian Institutio Oratoria Book 2. This volume includes not only the Latin text of Book 2 (1–34) but also an informative 50-page “Introduction” which examines Quintilian’s teaching methods, his concept of rhetoric, and his strategies in presenting his ideas. But the vast majority of the volume (35–394) offers meticulous commentaries on the 21 chapters of Book Two. A short prose summary introduces each chapter; then the editors painstakingly examine key Latin words and phrases in the text. Many of these observations are highly technical and demand some knowledge of Latin or Greek. On the other hand, many others may be illuminating to a general reader, as in the opening of chapter 11 (175–176), where the editors discuss Quintilian’s response to those who think rhetorical precepts are not necessary. Book 2 is an important one in the Institutio, for in it Quintilian ends his formal exposition of early education and begins his discussion of rhetoric.Another recent reprinting, of Book 10 of the Institutio, may seem at first glance to be of interest only to skilled classical scholars. This is William Peterson, Quintilian: Institutionis Oratoriae; Liber Decimus, originally published 1891, but now edited by Giles Lauren with a “Foreword” by James J. Murphy. It includes the Latin text of Book 10 with extensive notes mostly in English, with a full summary of the book (1–12), a useful short chapter on Quintilian’s literary criticism, and a longer one on his use of language with numerous examples in both English and Latin. Even the non-Latinate reader may find things to learn in this volume. Peterson was a child prodigy—he wrote this 290-page book at age 24—who later went on to become Principal of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.The most recent addition to the availability of Quintilian’s work is Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing: Translations from Books One, Two and Ten of the Institutio Oratoria, second edition, edited by James J. Murphy and Cleve Weise. Part One of the introduction discusses Quintilian’s teaching methods, including verification from modern cognitive science of his views on habit (hexis), together with some possibilities for modern applications of his principles; also Part Two presents four sets of Quintilian-based exercises designed to encourage close reading of the three translations which follow.The best single book on Quintilian, George A. Kennedy’s Quintilian, was published in 1969 by Twayne Publishers as part of their World Author series but has long been out of print. It has now reappeared in a revised edition as Kennedy, Quintilian: A Roman Educator and His Quest for the Perfect Orator. This slim (117 pages) volume is divided into eight chapters, each of which begins with the identification of “important sources and special studies at the beginning of each chapter rather than combining all bibliography in a single alphabetical list at the end of the book. This avoids the use of footnotes …” (1). While the book is ostensibly divided into sections representing Quintilian’s background, educational plan, rhetoric, and the “good man” concept in Book 12, what Kennedy actually presents is a thorough summary of the Institutio coupled with a far-ranging personal critique not only of the Institutio but of the man himself. He treats both Quintilian’s aspirations and what he views as his faults, and concludes the book with a discussion of Cornelius Tacitus (55?–117 CE) and the view that the Institutio had changed nothing in Rome. But Kennedy, author of so many books on classical rhetoric and its history, is so steeped in Roman culture that he writes easily about complex events; for example his portrayal of Quintilian’s possible reasons for retirement and the composition of the Institutio (22–28) reads almost like a novel. Anyone, expert or beginner, can profit from Kennedy’s observations.(Editor’s note: the following survey does not attempt to list every recent reference to Quintilian, or every entry for him in handbooks or encyclopedias. Nor does it follow every use in textbooks where his doctrines are mingled with others, as for example in the successive editions of works like Corbett and Connors, Classical Rhetoric and the Modern Student, and Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. The emphasis here instead is on books and articles which elucidate his text or lay out directions for future research.)A useful place to start is with three collections of essays, two of which contain a mixture of languages but do offer some valuable English contributions. The first one, already mentioned, is the massive three-volume Quintiliano (1998) edited by Tomás Albaladejo et al. Eleven of its 131 essays are in English, with contributions by Adams, Albaladejo, Cockcroft, Hallsall, Harsting, Hatch, Kennedy, Murphy, Willbanks, Winterbottom, and Woods. Its 1561 pages are continuously paginated.Another, smaller gathering presents twelve essays in two special issues of Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric in 1995, under the title “The Institutio Oratoria after 1900 years.” Six of the essays are in English, by Cranz, Fantham, France, Kraus, Sussman, and Ward.The volume Quintilian and the Law: The Art of Persuasion in Law and Politics (2003), edited by Olga Tellegen-Couperus, offers 25 essays, all of them in English, covering a wider range of subjects than the title might indicate. The book stems from a conference held at Tilburg in The Netherlands in 2001 convened by the Willem Witteveen and the editor “to try and assess [sic] Quintilian’s significance for students and practitioners of the art of persuasion in antiquity and in modern times” (Preface). The authors of six chapters do cover law and jurisprudence: Lewis, Robinson, Rossi, Tellegen, Tellegen-Couperus, and Witteveen. Another five focus on the courtroom and persuasion of judges: Henket, Katula, Martín, Mastrorosa, and Tellegen-Couperus in a second essay. Two deal with reading and writing in Book 10: Murphy and Taekema. The remainder discuss a variety of topics, including emotion, language, argument, and figures. In sum, this collection should prove valuable even to readers not primarily interested in law.The first observation to be made about current research is that, with the possible exception of Kennedy’s Quintilian, there is no book-length analytic study of Quintilian in English. But while Kennedy’s charming introduction to Quintilian does provide biographical information together with a running summary of the Institutio Oratoria, it is not intended as a thorough exploration of the many issues in this complex work. It is of course not surprising that we lack such a book, given the knowledges required—rhetoricians and students of education often lack sophisticated knowledge of ancient Roman culture, while classicists sometimes fail to appreciate the nuances of Quintilian’s rhetoric and pedagogy.Understandably, then, the overwhelming majority of articles and book chapters published since 1990 deal with particular, comparatively small segments of the Quintilian corpus. They present such a kaleidoscopic array that it seems best to group them by subject areas.The largest number of these (seventeen to be exact) discuss the later history of the Institutio Oratoria, its “reception” or “influence” in various times and places. They cover a wide range of topics: Renaissance learning (Classen); Saint Jerome (Davis “Culture”); Rousseau (France); Hugh Blair (Halloran; Hatch); the nineteenth century (Johnson); women in the Renaissance (Klink); Czech thought (Kraus); Milton and Ramus (Lares); Italian Renaissance (Monfasani); the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Murphy “Quintilian’s Influence”); Obadiah Walker (O’Rourke); eloquence in Quintilian’s time (Osgood); early modern role models (Rossi); and the Middle Ages (Ward; Woods).Teaching and its psychology interest another seventeen of the authors: Bloomer (“Schooling,” “Quintilian”); Brand et al.; Briggs; Connelly; Corbeill; Fantham (“The Concept of Nature”); Furse; Ker; Montefusco; Morgan (Literate Education); Murphy (“The Key Role of Habit,” “Quintilian’s Advice,” “Roman Writing Instruction”); Richlin; Too; Van Elst and Woners; Woods.Some of Quintilian’s specific teaching methods are treated: declamation (Breij; Friend; Kasper; Kennedy “Roman Declamation”; Mendelson “Declamation”; Sussman; Wiese); Progymnasmata (Fleming; Henderson; Kennedy, Progymnasmata; Webb); and imitation (Harsting; Taoka; Terrill).The application of Quintilian’s principles to modern education is the subject for six authors: Bourelle; Corbett and Connors; Crowley and Hawhee; Kasper.Another five works discuss the Institutio Oratoria itself: Adams; Celentano; López “The Concept”); and Murphy, Katula and Hoppman.Law attracts another five: Lewis; Martín; Robinson, Tellegen; Tellegen-Couperus (Quintilian and the Law).Emotion is the subject of three essays: Cockcoft; Katula (“Emotion”; Leigh.Language, writing, and style attract another eight authors: Chico-Rico; Craig; Davis (“Quintilian on Writing”); d’Esperey; Lausberg; Murphy (“Roman Writing Instruction”); Tellegen-Couperus (“Style and Law”); Wooten.Not surprisingly, there is interest in the subject of rhetoric in eight works: Albaladejo, Gunderson (“The Rhetoric”); Heath; Kennedy, (“Rhetoric,” A New History, “Peripatetic Rhetoric”); Roochnik; Wulfing.Quintilian as a person, including his vir bonus concept, draws the attention of Cranz; Halsall; Kennedy (Quintilian); Lanham; Logie; Walzer (Quintilian’s).One final note is to remark on the appearance of four Ph.D. dissertations in this array of studies (Furse; Ker; Klink; Wiese) together with two M.A. theses (Francoz; O’Rourke). Doctoral dissertations can be located fairly easily through normal bibliographic channels, but the identification of master’s theses is much more difficult. In any case, it is hoped that their appearance marks faculty interest in Quintilian in their respective institutions.

    doi:10.1080/15362426.2016.1182407
  4. “A Kind of Eloquence of the Body”: Quintilian’s Advice on Delivery for the Twenty-First-CenturyRhetor
    Abstract

    ABSTRACTThis essay makes the case that the account of delivery featured in the Institutio Oratoria remains germane to contemporary speech pedagogy. Quintilian emphasizes that (1) powerful delivery is central to eloquent public speaking; (2) delivery functions in concert with the other canons of rhetoric; and (3) delivery is governed by general rhetorical concepts such as decorum and ethos. Furthermore, scrutiny of Quintilian’s perspectives on gender and power can lead to fruitful rethinking of current pedagogy’s traditionalist tendencies.

    doi:10.1080/15362426.2016.1182405
  5. Finding the Grimkés in Charleston: Using Feminist Historiographic and Archival Research Methods to Build Public Memory