Rhetoric Review Jan 2019

Female Embodiment, Contradiction, and<i>Ethos</i>Negotiations in Genevieve Stebbins’s Late Nineteenth-Century Statue-Posing Arguments

Suzanne Bordelon San Diego State University

Abstract

This essay examines the work of Genevieve Stebbins (1857-1934), an author, teacher, and proponent of the ideas of French acting and vocal instructor François Delsarte. Specifically, I examine Stebbins’s concept of “artistic” statue posing, a practice fraught with contradictory arguments and tensions among late nineteenth-century commentators and other elocutionists who discussed appropriate forms of female embodied display. This study asserts that Stebbins drew on the rhetorical strategy of contradiction to perform an ethos of complexity and boundary innovation in advocating for female embodied rhetorical performance. Her work reveals the conflicts women have attempted to negotiate in considering rhetoric as embodied practice.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2019-01-02
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2019.1549440
Open Access
Closed
Topics
body and rhetoric argument

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Cooper (2022)
    Radcliffe’s Strongest Woman: The Bricolaged Body in One Progressive Era Women’s…
    Rhetoric Review

Cites in this index (2)

  1. Halloran (2001)
    Text and experience in a historical pageant: Toward a rhetoric of spectacle
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. Reynolds (1993)
    <i>Ethos</i>as location: New sites for understanding discursive authority
    Rhetoric Review
Also cites 6 works outside this index ↓
  1. Banta Martha. (1987)
    Imagining American Women: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History
     ↗
  2. 10.1080/00335637309383155
     ↗
  3. 10.5642/mimejournal.20052301.05
     ↗
  4. 10.5642/mimejournal.20052301.08
     ↗
  5. 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2009.01029.x
     ↗
  6. Ruyter Nancy (1999)
    The Cultivation of Body and Mind in Nineteenth-Century American Delsartism
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network →

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