About

Historically, women have been excluded from participating in the theory and practice of rhetoric, or the art of persuasion. Southern women, especially, have been portrayed as figures who tended the home fires but did not engage directly in political or public life. Yet, UNC's Wilson Library maintains a wealth of documents written by women who went beyond these stereotypical roles. These narratives document women’s exploits as spies, social reformers, missionaries, teachers, blockade runners, and as escapees from slavery. In this course, students will examine these primary documents to uncover the persuasive strategies women writers, especially women of the American South, have used to write themselves into history or to participate in public life.

The main course projects will be

1) a research paper that draws on primary documents available from UNC's Documenting the American South collection
2) a digital exhibit that will be posted to this website. After the course is over, this website will become a resource on Southern Women's Rhetorics, to which students in future sections of this course will add
3) a submission to an undergraduate research journal or conference

In this course, you will be working with a Graduate Research Consultant, Emily Bunner, who will assist you in the research project. The GRC Program is sponsored by the Office for Undergraduate Research. I encourage you to visit this website to see other ways that you might engage in research, scholarship and creative performance while you are at Carolina.

Required Texts:

Annie L. Burton, Women's Slave Narratives (Dover, 2006). ISBN: 0486445550

Charles East, Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary Of A Southern Woman (Touchstone, 1992). ISBN: 0671785036

Mary Church Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World (Humanity Books, 2005). ISBN: 159102322X

Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin, The Making of a Southerner. (U of Georgia Press, 1992). ISBN: 0820313858

Dorothy Height, Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir (Public Affairs, 2005). ISBN: 1586482866

Anne Braden, The Wall Between (U of Tennessee Press, 1999) ISBN: 1-57233-061-9

See attachment for complete syllabus