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Course Policies: ENGL630-501--Women Rhetors and Rhetoricians

Professor Beth Ann Rothermel

O-Hours:  5:00-6:00 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays

Required Texts:

  • Available Means:  An Anthology of Women’s Rhetoric(s).  Edited by Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald.  University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.
  • The Answer/La Respuesta. By Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Critical edition and translation by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell. The Feminist Press, 1994.
  • Woman in the Nineteenth Century. By Margaret Fuller. Edited by Larry J. Reynolds. A Norton Critical Edition, 1998.
  • Iola Leroy.  By Frances Harper.
  • A Room of One's Own. By Virginia Woolf. Harcourt Brace, 1957.

Course Description: Familiar narratives told about the history of rhetoric suggest a tradition dominated and documented by men. To what extent has this history also been influenced by the speech and writing of women? This course will take up this and other timely questions, as we, in the words of scholar Andrea Lunsford, "listen--and listen hard--to and for the voices of women in the history of rhetoric." We will study the contributions of writers such as Sappho, Margery Kempe, Christine de Pizan, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret Fuller, Sojourner Truth, Frances Harper, Ida Wells-Barnett, Virginia Woolf, Rachel Carson, and Gloria Anzaldua. In particular, we will examine the extent to which these writers have worked both within and outside of Western rhetorical tradition, at times resisting and at times negotiating its various theories and practices.

Assignments: This course requires you to write 4 short response papers (1-2 pages), a research review (with presentation/discussion), bibliography, and a final research essay (15-20 pages).

Grading: Your final grade will be based on the following:

  • Response Papers: 200
  • Research Review: 100
  • Presentation: 100
  • Bibliography: 150
  • Prospectus/Abstract: 50
  • Seminar essay (multiple drafts): 400

Total: 1000 points

Tentative Course Syllabus

This schedule covers major reading and writing assignments. There may be additional reading and writing assignments.

·        May 20: Introductions. For May 22 in Available Means, read the introduction, Aspasia, Diotima, and Hortensia, pp. 1-19.  Read also selections by Sappho along with Bizzell and Herzberg's "General Introduction" and their "Introduction to the Classical Period" (packet), and Corbett's "Rhetoric, the Enabling Discipline.”

·        May 22: Classical Rhetoric. Sappho.  For May 27 read in Available Means Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Christine De Pizan, and Margery Kempe, pp. 25-48.  Also, read Bizzell and Herzberg's "Introduction to the Medieval Period" and Glenn article (handout).  Response papers.

·        May 27:  Medieval Rhetoric.  For May 29 in Available Means, read Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Anger, and Rachel Speght, and Margaret Fell, pp. 48-71.  Also, read Bizzell and Herzberg's "Introduction to the Renaissance," and “Introduction to the Englightenment.”  Response papers.

·        May 29: Renaissance Rhetoric.  For June 3 read Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz' The Answer/La Respuesta, Introduction (pp. 1-18), "The Poet's Answer," 39-105, and selected poems (TBA).

·        June 3:  Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.  Renaissance/Enlightenment Rhetoric.  For June 5 in Available Means read Mary Astell, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Belinda, and Mary Wollstonecraft.Wollstonecraft, pp. 79-106 and a selection of 18th century American poetry.  Response papers.

·        June 5: Enlightenment Rhetoric. For June 10 read Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century in Norton Critical, pp. 7-105.  Also, in Available Means, read Cherokee Women, 106-108 and Sojourner Truth, 143-147, and Bizzell and Herzberg’s “Introduction to the Nineteenth-Century.”  Response papers.   

·        June 10: Nineteenth-Century American Rhetoric.  For June 17 read Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy.  Also, in Available Means, read Ida B. Wells pp. 188-204.

·        June 12:  No class.

·        June 17: Nineteenth-Century American Rhetoric. Harper and Wells.  For June 19 in Available Means, read Buck, Jordan, Sanger, Nelson, and Day, pp. 211-241.  Also, read Bizzell and Herzberg's "Introduction to Modern and Postmodern Rhetoric." 

·        June 19: Twentieth-Century Rhetoric.  Proposing your paper and putting together your bibliography. For June 24 read Virginia Woof’s A Room of One’s Own.  Paper proposal and working bibliography due.

·        June 24: Twentieth-Century Rhetoric.  For June 26 in Available Means, read Carson, 259-262, Lorde 301-306, Anzaldua, 356-366, and Trinh T. Minh-Ha, 377-382.  Working thesis/essay plan.

·        June 26:  Twentieth-Century Rhetoric.  Conclusions.  Workshop.   

The final draft of your seminar paper is due no later than July 3, 5:00 p.m in Bates 213. I will be available for conferences on drafts during that week.

Please do not hesitate to stop by and talk to me if you have questions or concerns. You can also e-mail me at brothermel@foma.wsc.mass.edu or call me at 572-5336. I'm looking forward to a productive semester.