Abstract

Nineteenth-century AME preacher Julia Foote self-published her spiritual autobiography twice during her itinerancy; the text—a blend of personal and collective narrative and sermonic rhetoric—enabled her to enter the more public, political discourse of religious activism. Foote engages in national sociopolitical debates, uses publically available histories, and manipulates genre to create a de facto church service over which she can preside. In essence, Foote’s text is a performative subgenre of the spiritual autobiography—the itinerant book—that literally circulates in print culture as an activist text and figuratively circulates within the psychic fervor of late nineteenth-century American Protestantism.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2014-04-03
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2014.884415
Open Access
Closed

Citation Context

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Cites in this index (2)

  1. College English
  2. College Composition and Communication
Also cites 9 works outside this index ↓
  1. Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746–1892
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  3. Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms
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  5. 10.5422/fso/9780823225187.003.0014
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  7. Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century
  8. Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women.
  9. Beyond the Pulpit: Women’s Rhetorical Roles in the Antebellum Religious Press
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