V's Pick #12: Rhetoric Retold by Cheryl Glenn

This was the last book I read for my exam (taking it Friday) and I'm not sure why it ended up that this one sealed me off (I stopped reading in order a month ago) but I'm glad it did. 


Glenn called me out before the first chapter - she called every Rhet/Comp student and/or scholar out. Why? Because we've forgotten women. I'm guilty as charged, but it's partly not my fault. How many classes have been offered in my program that focused, no, even *mentioned* women in regard to rhetoric? Zero. Well, one, if you consider a half of a class period learning about Susan Anthony and the Grimke sisters in Rhetorical Traditions before moving on the more important men... Reading Jarratt was the first connection I'd seen anyone make, even slightly, between feminism and rhetoric. 


Not only is this book seminal and beautifully crafted, but it's a huge and risky task, something reading for this exam has helped me appreciate in regard to scholarship. With Rhetoric Retold, Glenn is not only challenging the "Heritage Turnpike" (the current 'map' of rhetorical history) but she's rewriting it. What started as a graduate interest in Aspasia (wife of Pericles, teacher, mother and respected orator said to have influenced Socrates and lead the Sophistic movement) lead to a five year project to literally re-write history. 


Now, with regard to history and rewriting, Glenn is careful to remind us, as Berlin and Schippa respectfully mirror, that history is a fiction - what you read is a mix between reality and opinion. Thus, Glenn focuses her efforts on contributing a histiography (basically a history of discourse), making fewer claims about what inspired whom, rather, discussing the textual evidence of women's existence in rhetoric since the Trojan War. 


I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in feminist literature - Glenn's definition of "rhetoric" is purposefully loose for the sake of inclusion; her examples of female voices are richly researched, thoughtfully explored and nicely set among plenty of contextual history. As a Lit major in undergrad, I'm shamed to say that only through Glenn did I learn the origin of the word "lesbian," the beauty of Sappho's writing and the importance of "silence."