Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

9-2008

Abstract

So I asked myself, what does it mean that there is not a single woman of note engaged in philosophy or rhetoric for more than 1500 years? The obvious answer until now has been that women during this era were oppressed and the lack of primary materials by ancient women is an indication of the reality of their oppression. In addition, feminist historiography is especially painstaking work and requires an enormous amount of time, knowledge, and/or motivation. Then, of course, even when historical women are recovered, scholars of historical rhetoric can resist newly recovered figures as meriting canonical status within their own historical period, insisting that women recovered in our age are a product of contemporary rhetoric. These problems serve to constrain the material reality under which all scholars of historical rhetoric must function and produce their scholarship. But, there are other problems too, problems we don‟t directly discuss.

Comments

Presented at Graduate English Association New Voices Conference 2008, pp. 1-12.

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