Unruly brides of Christ: virtuous transgression and interruption as ethos in religious women's rhetoric

This thesis explores how three religious women rhetors – St. Catherine of Siena, Sarah Grimke, and Mary Daly – rhetorically navigated and ultimately subverted the stringent ethical codes and gendered expectations imposed on “virtuous women” by crafting an ethos of interruption. Aristotelian ethos, a distinctly male creation, conceived of solely for use by the male citizen-orator of the polis, represents a hurdle for the female rhetor, who, in order to speak, must transgress gendered notions of virtue inherited from pagan, classical antiquity, and existent up until Christian modernity. Linking recent feminist re-imaginings of ethos to the rhetorical strategy of interruption, this study seeks to trace how religious female rhetors, who by investing themselves with rhetorical authority, subsequently divested themselves of traditional feminine virtue as they overcame the silent, passive ideal of the virtuous woman.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Edmonds, Julianna L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jones, Rebecca E.
• Beech, Jennifer A.; Hampton, Bryan A.
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Rhetoric -- Technique
• Rhetoric -- Religious aspects
• Catherine, -- of Siena, Saint, -- 1347-1380 -- Criticism and interpretation; Grimké, Sarah Moore, -- 1792-1873 -- Criticism and interpretation; Daly, Mary, -- 1928-2010 -- Criticism and interpretation

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/110

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1111