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  • Conversational Rhetoric: The Rise and Fall of a Women’s Tradition, 1600–1900 by Jane Donawerth
  • Emily Berg Paup
Conversational Rhetoric: The Rise and Fall of a Women’s Tradition, 1600–1900. By Jane Donawerth. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012; pp xi + 205. $60.00 cloth.

As a scholarly community, it is not only important that we theorize, analyze, and interpret communicative acts but also that we educate. In her new book, Conversational Rhetoric: The Rise and Fall of a Women’s Tradition, 1600–1900, Jane Donawerth manages successfully to fulfill 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 significance 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 [End Page 213] rhetorical theory” (10). She finds a link among a diverse group of female theorists in their common assertion that “conversational rhetoric” should be a “model of discourse” (3). Although each woman highlighted has a different historical context, all seem to advocate for the same sort of rhetorical education. Donawerth’s study is an example of recent scholarship that has enhanced our understanding of theory to provide a more nuanced approach to studying female communication texts.

While every theorist analyzed contributes to the theory of conversational rhetoric, Donawerth explicates its significant contribution to modern rhetorical theory perhaps most clearly in chapters 1 and 3. Chapter 1 highlights women writing “humanist dialogues and defenses” in England and France during the seventeenth century. Through an analysis of the writings of Madeleine de Scudéry, Margaret Cavendish, Bathsua Makin, and Mary Astell, Donawerth expertly traces the evolution of this alternative strain of theory. These women showcased knowledge of humanist philosophy and classical rhetorical theory, using them to challenge socially gendered spheres of communication. Chapter 3 analyzes texts defending a woman’s right to preach, including the writings of Margaret Fell, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Ellen Stewart, Jarena Lee, Catherine Booth, and Frances Willard. Donawerth finds that these women were participating in the debate about “who is the ideal orator?” (74), arguing that through the use of conversation as a model and discourse about women’s rights, these women continued to establish a rhetorical theory based on “collaborative authorship and dialogic authority” (103).

An important contribution that this book makes is its connection between theory and context. Through a deep understanding of each woman’s biography, background, and context, Donawerth is able to analyze and interpret their rhetorical activities to understand how they questioned the “masculine” rhetorical culture in which they lived. Donawerth identifies the texts that she studies as places of resistance. Throughout her study, she finds communicative moments that debate the importance of education for women, women’s right to speak publicly, and the gendered nature of physical behavior. Throughout the book...

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