ENC 3021 Spring 2024

Most of us are familiar with the rhetorical principles of ethos, pathos, and logos, and the idea of appealing to an audience. Or–when we consider the wider world of public and civic life–we associate rhetoric either with moving political speeches or with persuasive sleight of hand designed to mislead. Although these ideas and techniques–rooted in classical Greek rhetoric–certainly exist, they exclude some of the most omnipresent, diverse, and varied examples of rhetoric throughout history and surrounding us in the world today. It is by now a commonplace to say that women’s voices have been absent from the Western rhetorical tradition, as either practitioners or theorists. The last thirty years, however, have produced a number of challenges to such assumptions, as well as to the masculinist traditions of classical rhetoric. As a result, an extensive recovery project has been underway. While recovering–and finally hearing–women’s voices is one thing, discovering or creating a feminist rhetoric as a corollary to the masculinist tradition is quite another. This course calls into question the way Western rhetorical theories have been thought about and taught through a white, patriarchal lens. We will begin and end our course with a central question: what is feminist rhetoric?