EmbodiedEthosand Rhetorical Accretion: Genevieve Stebbins and theDelsarte System of Expression

Rhetoric Society Quarterly Mar 2016

EmbodiedEthosand Rhetorical Accretion: Genevieve Stebbins and theDelsarte System of Expression

Suzanne Bordelon San Diego State University

Abstract

This essay extends efforts to complicate traditional understandings of ethos by considering it as expressed through and by means of the body. This analysis also examines ethos in relation to Vicki Tolar Burton’s concept of rhetorical accretion or the practice of overlaying new texts on the primary core text. To reveal the significance of analyzing ethos in this manner, this study explores the work of Genevieve Stebbins, a late nineteenth-century proponent of the ideas of French acting and vocal instructor François Delsarte. The essay examines her use of textual accretion as a form of critique but also as a means of acceptance and overlay. More significantly, it reveals the ways that Stebbins’s deployment of rhetorical accretion represents a striking reversal of Burton’s concept. Instead of men overlaying a woman’s text we see the opposite practice in Stebbins’s case.

Journal: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published: 2016-03-14
DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2016.1141347
Open Access: Closed
Topics: argument

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

Bjork et al. (2021)

Resisting Temporal Regimes, Imagining Just Temporalities

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Cites in this index (4)

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Reconceiving Ethos in Relation to the Personal: Strategies of Placement in Pion…

College English
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College English

Also cites 5 works outside this index ↓

10.2307/3207893

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10.5642/mimejournal.20052301.05

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Gold David (2013)

Rhetoric, History, and Women’s Oratorical Education: American Women Learn to Speak

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Ruyter Nancy (1999)

The Cultivation of Body and Mind in Nineteenth-Century American Delsartism

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CrossRef global citation count: 3 View in citation network →

Embodied<i>Ethos</i>and Rhetorical Accretion: Genevieve Stebbins and the<i>Delsarte System of Expression</i>

Abstract

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

Cites in this index (4)

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