Feminist Research Methodologies in Historic Rhetoric and Composition: An Overview of Scholarship from the 1970s to the Present

Abstract

This essay offers a chronology of over sixty works that have directly innovated, solidified, or critiqued feminist research methodologies in the study of historic rhetoric and composition over the past four decades. The ongoing conversation about feminist research in rhetoric and composition continues to raise questions about method, methodology, and canonicity just as the research itself continues to recover and re-vision a wealth of historic work. This essay, in its broad review, presents readers a panoramic snapshot of the major trends and methodological debates that have shaped feminist historic scholarship in our field.

Notes

¹This study began as a graduate-level research project for Dr. Lynée Gaillet's scholarly publication class at Georgia State University. A brief summary of our initial findings was published in the Fall 2006 edition of Peitho, the newsletter for the Coalition of Women Scholars in Historic Rhetoric and Composition. We thank RR peer reviewers Susan Kates and Nan Johnson for their excellent reviews of our submission to Rhetoric Review and acknowledge Lynée Gaillet and Susan Romano for their early feedback on this article and Hui Wu for insightful suggestions regarding the inclusion of activist feminist rhetoric. We also acknowledge contributions from Cantice Payton Greene, Spelman College; Letizia Guglielmo, Kennesaw State University; Gina L. Henderson, Georgia State University; Xiumei Pu, University of Minnesota; and Alexis Anne Bender, Georgia State University.

²In Methods and Methodologies in Composition Research, Kirsch and Sullivan define method as “a technique or way of proceeding in gathering evidence” and methodology as “the underlying theory and analysis of how research does or should proceed” (2).

³Historiography presents history as stories with varying degrees of probability, some more verifiable than others. For an early discussion of feminist historiography, see Jarratt's “Speaking to the Past: Feminist Historiography in Rhetoric.” For general discussions on the use of historiography as a research method, see the recent essay by Graff and Leff and earlier discussions by Brooks, Enos (“Octalog”), Jarratt, Murphy, and Vitanza.

⁴For a discussion of feminist research in historical rhetoric and composition conducted prior to 1970, see Nan Johnson's excellent introduction to her book Gender and Rhetorical Space (3–4).

⁵For another perspective on the Campbell/Biesecker debate, see Buchanan's Regendering Delivery (167).

⁶Additional commentary on the Gale/Glenn/Jarratt/Ong debate also can be found in Buchanan's Regendering Delivery (167).

Bolker, Joan. “Teaching Griselda to Write.” College English 40 (1979): 906–08. Rpt. in Gesa Kirsch. et al. Feminism and Composition: A Critical Sourcebook. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.

Jarratt, Susan C, ed. Rhetoric Society Quarterly22.1 (Winter 1992).