Presents a methodology based on the concept of “material rhetoric” that can help scholars avoid problems as they reclaim women’s historical texts. Defines material rhetoric and positions it theoretically in relation to other methodologies, including bibliographical studies, reception theory, and established feminist methodologies. Illustrates feminist use of material rhetoric through a study of “The Account of Hester Ann Rogers.”

The Lost Cause of Rhetoric: The Relation of Rhetoric and Geometry in Aristotle and Lacan by David Metzger. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1995. xvi; 135. Roman Rhetoric: Revolution and the Greek Influence by Richard Leo Enos. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1995; xii + 135pp. Nineteenth‐Century Women Learn to Write edited by Catherine Hobbs. Charlottesville and London, University of Virginia Press, 1995. 343 pp. Kenneth Burke and Contemporary European Thought edited by Bernard L. Brock. Tuscaloosa, U of Alabama P, 1995; xii; 279 pp. A Teacher's Introduction to Composition in the Rhetorical Tradition by W. Ross Winterowd & Jack Blum. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994. A Teacher's Introduction to Postmodernism by Ray Linn Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1996.