This dissertation explores the relationship between gender and argumentation, complicating narratives that cast debating as an exclusionary practice that solely privileges elite, educated, white men. Drawing on three case studies of womens participation in debate, I argue that debating societies functioned as venues for rhetorical education and performance. Each chapter aims to add to our understanding about debate within historical contexts, reveal insight about the women who debated, and develop or extend concepts within rhetorical and argumentation scholarship. The first case study traces the Ladies Edinburgh Debating Society from 1865 to 1935. This community-based association balanced the desire to achieve ideal rational-critical debate with the need to accommodate and sustain involvement by women of infinite variety, developing what I call an intergenerational argument culture. The second case study explores the relationship between debate history and the history of rhetorical criticism by examining Marie Hochmuth Nicholss intercollegiate debate participation in Pittsburgh in the 1930s. Nicholss debate experience cultivated a sense of gendered rhetorical excellence and a sensibility toward criticism that she would later develop as a major figure in twentieth-century rhetorical studies. The final case study explores how the challenges of debating at a southern historically black college in the 1950s influenced Barbara Jordans rhetorical strategies and political career. Debating allowed Jordan to recognize the importance of viewing the body as a rhetorical resource in negotiating and sustaining access to exclusionary spaces. Though these women came from different socioeconomic, educational, racial, and geographical backgrounds, all used the vehicle of debate to challenge prevailing social norms. They not only honed their critical thinking, writing, speaking, and reasoning abilities through debate participation; they also used their experiences in unexpected ways as they negotiated difference along the intersecting axes of gender, race, class, age, ability, and citizenship. The final chapter argues that the dominant conceptual metaphor of argument-as-war is insufficient in capturing the complex dynamics between gender and argumentation. Instead, I offer an alternative of argument-as-travel, a more flexible metaphor that acknowledges the range of diverse participation in debate and accounts for the methodological choices involved in doing feminist rhetorical historical scholarship.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12082010-003601 |
| Date | 30 January 2011 |
| Creators | Woods, Carly Sarah |
| Contributors | John Lyne, Gordon R Mitchell, Ronald J. Zboray, Jessica Enoch, Kathryn T. Flannery |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12082010-003601/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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