Conversational Rhetoric: The Rise and Fall of a Women's Tradition, 1600-1900

Abstract

Asa scholarly community, it is not only important that we theorize, analyze, and interpret communicative acts but also that we educate. In her newbook,Conversational Rhetoric: The Rise and Fall of a Women’s Tradition, 1600–1900, Jane Donawerth manages successfully to fulfıll both obligations. She adds several women to the history of rhetorical theory, analyzes their texts with sophistication and detail, and interprets for her reading audience the signifıcance of their contributions. She does this all while suggesting ways in which we might improve our own pedagogy. The book is the most recent edition to the series Studies in Rhetorics and Feminisms, an interdisciplinary project seeking to “connect rhetorical inquiry with contemporary academic and social concerns.”While her study is an important contribution to our understanding of modern rhetorical theory, perhaps her most unique contribution is the assertion that theories of the past can be lessons in pedagogical technique today. Donawerth writes, “While there is not a direct link from the women’s tradition of rhetoric to these examples of contemporary composition pedagogy, nevertheless, we can yet learn something about our own teaching practices from a tradition that taught women how to enter the conversation” (145). Donawerth carefully argues that the women she writes about are influential in the history of rhetoric and that their theories might inform our own scholarly activities today. The study of women and their rhetorical contributions can provide insight into communication theory and social contexts. Donawerth’s analysis accomplishes both of these tasks in several ways. Donawerth writes her self-described “revisionist, feminist, critical or ‘constructionist’ history of women’s rhetorical theory” (9) by analyzing dialogues, conduct books, pamphlets, speeches, elocution handbooks, and other forms of communication written by women for women from 1600 to 1900. In her study, Donawerth describes the rise and fall of a “counterdiscourse of women’s BOOK REVIEWS 213