Toward a Posthuman Perspective: Feminist Rhetorical Methodologies and Everyday Practices

Advances in the History of Rhetoric Jan 2012

Toward a Posthuman Perspective: Feminist Rhetorical Methodologies and Everyday Practices

Sarah Hallenbeck

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers the emergence of methodological patterns, or “sanctioned narratives,” within feminist rhetorical historiography, arguing that with just a few exceptions these patterns have anchored our work to conceptions of the woman-as-rhetor exercising deliberate, strategic agency against her world, rather than within it. While this conception has been enormously productive in redefining what “counts” in the history of rhetoric, it also constrains our attempts to pursue broader methodological projects that take as their subject the interworkings of rhetoric, power, and gender. After describing the ways that existing methodological patterns have become entrenched, this article offers one method for shifting our commitments, a feminist-materialist methodology. Influenced by theories of posthuman agency and by actor-network theory, this method can help feminist rhetoricians pursue broader conceptions of rhetoric that will allow us to intervene more effectively in the rhetorical production and transformation of gender relations and power dynamics.

Journal: Advances in the History of Rhetoric
Published: 2012-01-01
DOI: 10.1080/15362426.2012.657044
CompPile: Search in CompPile ↗
Topics: gender and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

Swartz (2024)

Biodigital Literacy through Intimate Data: User Perceptions of FemTech and Pelv…

Communication Design Quarterly
Swartz (2024)

Biodigital Literacy through Intimate Data: User Perceptions of FemTech and Pelv…

Communication Design Quarterly

Cites in this index (11)

Cooper (2011)

Rhetorical Agency as Emergent and Enacted

College Composition and Communication
Kirsch et al. (2010)

Feminist Rhetorical Practices: In Search of Excellence

College Composition and Communication
Mara et al. (2009)

Posthuman Rhetorics and Technical Communication

Technical Communication Quarterly
Graham (2009)

Agency and the Rhetoric of Medicine: Biomedical Brain Scans and the Ontology of…

Technical Communication Quarterly
Jack (2009)

Acts of Institution: Embodying Feminist Rhetorical Methodologies in Space and Time

Rhetoric Review

Show all 11 →

Tasker et al. (2008)

Feminist Research Methodologies in Historic Rhetoric and Composition: An Overvi…

Rhetoric Review
Winsor (2006)

Using Writing to Structure Agency: An Examination of Engineers' Practice

Technical Communication Quarterly
Mattingly (2002)

Telling evidence: Rethinking what counts in rhetoric

Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Glenn (2000)

Truth, Lies, and Method: Revisiting Feminist Historiography

College English
Jarratt (2000)

Rhetoric and Feminism: Together Again

College English
Bizzell (1992)

Opportunities for feminist research in the history of rhetoric

Rhetoric Review

Also cites 2 works outside this index ↓

Latour (2005)

Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory

↗
Stormer (2004)

Articulation: A Working Paper on Rhetoric and Taxis

Quarterly Journal of Speech ↗

CrossRef global citation count: 35 View in citation network →