Catholic Womens Rhetoric in the United States: Ethos, the Patriarchy, and Femin [Paperback]

Building on various feminist theories of ethos, the authors in this collection explore how North American Catholic women from various periods, races, ethnicities, sexualities, and classes have used elements of the groups positionality to make change. The women considered in the book range from the earliest Catholic sisters who arrived in the United States to women who held the Church hierarchy accountable for the sexual abuse scandals. The book analyzes women such as those in an African American order who developed an ethos that would resist racism. Chapters also consider better known Catholic women such as Dolores Huertas, Mary Daly, and Joan Chittister.

Elizabethada A. Wright is professor of writing studies at University of Minnesota Duluth.
Christina R. Pinkston is assistant professor of English at Norfolk State University.

Landmark studies do not belie this volumes thesis that the rhetorical activities of Roman Catholic women have been largely neglected: either they are voiceless nonentities under the Churchs (male) thumb; or anything interesting about their rhetoric can be isolated from their faith commitments. But here, contemporary theories of ecologically defined ethos reveal Catholic womens deployment of rich rhetorical resources in studies of womens religious orders, laywomens activism, leadership by figures such as Mary Daly and Dolores Huerta, and the dynamic public ethos of Mother Angelica and Sister Joan Chittister, among others. When the rhetorical activities of other marginalized groups have been analyzed, important insights have emerged for the entire field, not only for members of those groups, and scholars will find the same broad significance in this volume. I know I did! Patricia Bizzell, College of the Holy Cross

Catholic Women's Rhetoric is a groundbreaking collection exploring neglected topics in the history of rhetorical education and religious activism in the United States. These challenging essays provide signiflÓ$