The problem prompting this study is that historically the woman rhetor has been marginalized by virtue of her gender, and indeed still is. Yet, despite their marginalization, women have always found ways to make their voices heard and their ideas known. The question that prompted this study is: how do women rhetors gain access the public sphere when they are barred from participation, or when their interventions are culturally restricted? This dissertation is a feminist historical investigation of a rhetorical strategy used by disenfranchised populations to gain access to a prohibited public sphere, a strategy I call rhetoric on a slant. In examining the rhetorical performances of one eighteenth-century woman writer, Sarah Fielding, during one historical era when women's rhetorical options were severely restricted, this study isolates the strategy of rhetoric on a slant, which heretofore existed only as a concept. Rhetoric on a slant is a strategy by which a marginalized rhetor engages with genres and enacts agency in order to participate in discourses from which she is otherwise restricted or outright barred. It is a subversive strategy, which, in Fielding's case, consists, of two techniques and their tactics, and its use is necessitated by a rhetorical situation that constrains a marginalized rhetor in ways that demand it. To that end, this study of rhetoric on a slant is informed by current theories of genre and agency, and, in revealing how and in what ways they intersect, it offers new insights into theories of genre and agency in turn. This investigation of rhetoric on a slant establishes a set of critical terms specific to Fielding by which to delineate how her performances manifested evolving agency co-constituted with her environment, and therefore it offers fresh insights about women's rhetorical agency. Using these newly established terms and the newly isolated strategy of rhetoric on a slant as a lens to analyze Fielding's rhetorical behavior allowed for discoveries in her writing as to the ways she invents and implements techniques and tactics of rhetoric on a slant in written genres. In doing so, it offers insights into women's rhetorical practices that have heretofore remained un-theorized by scholars in the field of rhetoric and composition. By offering insights into the performances of a specific rhetor, this dissertation helps us not only to identify and document a culture's influence on genre trends and within the rhetor's environment, but also to observe and understand how, in a culture that keeps diligent watch over genres and decorum alike, a disenfranchised rhetor is able to use rhetoric on a slant to enact agency to navigate through genre restrictions and thereby change her environment. Ultimately, this study shows how and by what means, despite the rhetor's marginalized subject position, her intervention is possible with the use of rhetoric on a slant. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / March 26, 2018. / agency, eighteenth century, feminist strategies, genre, rhetoric, women / Includes bibliographical references. / Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Professor Directing Dissertation; Donna Marie Nudd, University Representative; Tarez Samra Graban, Committee Member; Candace Ward, Committee Member; Kathleen Blake Yancey, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_654713 |
| Contributors | Canter, Martha A. (author), Fleckenstein, Kristie S. (professor directing dissertation), Nudd, Donna M (university representative), Graban, Tarez Samra (committee member), Ward, Candace (committee member), Yancey, Kathleen Blake, 1950- (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Arts and Sciences (degree granting college), Department of English (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (239 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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