This course focuses on the history of rhetoric, from Classical Greek and Latin traditions through medieval, Renaissance, modern, and contemporary treatments, with special emphasis on gendered rhetorical practices. We will begin by reviewing the traditional five “canons” of rhetoric--invention, organization, style, memory, and delivery and then move on to explore how these traditional canons have been shaped and reshaped through gendered practice, beginning with two precursors to the western rhetorical tradition, the Sumerian high priestess Enheduanna (2350 BCE) and the poet Sappho of Lesbos, whose poetic fragments we will compare with one of Alcaeus, a male poet writing in the same time and place. We will go on to examine the debate over the work of Sophists and then move to the odd triangle of Plato, Aspasia, and Pericles. We will continue chronologically, generally pairing male and female rhetorics, from Hortensia and Cicero; to Francis Bacon, Queen Elizabeth I, and Margaret Cavendish; to Richard Whately, Maria Stewart, and the women of the Cherokee Nation; to Richard Weaver and Zora Neale Hurston. We will conclude by looking at some contemporary uses of rhetoric by Toni Morrison, Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde, Anna Deavere Smith, George Bush, and others, including one contemporary work chosen by the class. If time permits, we will also have a screening of one film and at least one political speech. Our focus will be on relations across texts, on the uses of rhetorical strategies within texts, and on the role of gender in authorizing texts and rhetors.

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