Beyond the Pulpit : Women's Rhetorical Roles in the Antebellum Religious Press

Shaver, Lisa J.

ISBN 10: 0822961695 / ISBN 13: 9780822961697

Edité par University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012

A propos de cet article

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Beyond the Pulpit : Women's Rhetorical Roles in the Antebellum Religious Press
• Éditeur: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Date de parution: 2012
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0822961695
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780822961697
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• Édition: 1st Edition.
• État de l'article: Good
• Poids: 1,468 livre

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

In the formative years of the Methodist Church in the United States, women played significant roles as proselytizers, organizers, lay ministers, and majority members. Although womenÆs participation helped the church to become the nationÆs largest denomination by the mid-nineteenth century, their official roles diminished during that time. In Beyond the Pulpit, Lisa Shaver examines Methodist periodicals as a rhetorical space to which women turned to find, and make, self-meaning.

In 1818, Methodist Magazine first published \u201cmemoirs\u201d that eulogized women as powerful witnesses for their faith on their deathbeds. As Shaver observes, it was only in death that a woman could achieve the status of minister. Another Methodist publication, the Christian Advocate, was AmericaÆs largest circulated weekly by the mid-1830s. It featured the \u201cLadiesÆ Department,\u201d a column that reinforced the canon of women as dutiful wives, mothers, and household managers. Here, the church also affirmed women in the important rhetorical and evangelical role of domestic preacher. Outside the \u201cLadies Department,\u201d women increasingly appeared in \u201clittle narratives\u201d in which they were portrayed as models of piety and charity, benefactors, organizers, Sunday school administrators and teachers, missionaries, and ministersÆ assistants. These texts cast women into nondomestic roles that were institutionally sanctioned and widely disseminated.

By 1841, the LadiesÆ Repository and Gatherings of the West was engaging women in discussions of religion, politics, education, science, and a variety of intellectual debates. As Shaver posits, by providing a forum for women writers and readers, the church gave them an official rhetorical space and the license to define their own roles and spheres of influence. As such, the periodicals of the Methodist church became an important public venue in which womenÆs voices were heard and their identities explored.

À propos de l?auteur

Lisa Shaver is associate professor in professional writing and rhetoric and director of women’s and gender studies at Baylor University. She is the author of Beyond the Pulpit: Women’s Rhetorical Roles in the Antebellum Religious Press.