Listening to their voices

Most traditional works of rhetorical history have excluded the activities of women, but Listening to Their Voices retrieves the words and writings of women who contributed to the rhetorical realm. Offering fresh interpretations of women's speaking and writing throughout Western history, the eighteen essays in this collection extend existing definitions of rhetoric and enrich conventional knowledge of rhetorical history. In her introduction Molly Meijer Wertheimer traces the patriarchal nature of traditional rhetorical histories as well as the continuing debate about how best to write women into rhetoric's historical record. Though composed from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, the volume's essays advance rhetorical theory by examining exceptional women rhetoricians and their unusual rhetorical practices and strategies.