Papers by Kerith Woodyard
Journalism History, 2023
Grounded in Jenell Johnson’s theory of visceral publics, this study examines 229 letters publishe... more Grounded in Jenell Johnson’s theory of visceral publics, this study examines 229 letters published in the Smasher’s Mail, an American temperance newspaper edited by Progressive-era reformer Carrie (or Carry) Nation at the height of her 1901 saloon-smashing crusade to enforce Kansas prohibition. Because the newspaper printed letters from citizens who energetically endorsed saloon-smashing as a tactic of pro-temperance agitation and from those who vociferously opposed it, this analysis illuminates how Nation’s paper functioned as an important platform for fervid public deliberation over the perceived necessity of temperance reform and the best means of achieving it. Exploring what the smashing controversy meant to real people and the powerful feelings it elicited on both sides of the debate, this study demonstrates the emergence of two oppositional visceral publics bound by shared intense feelings over perceived boundary violations involving the borders of the human body, the home, private enterprise, law and order, and the “woman’s sphere.” Pro-smashing writers, who elevated their alcohol-free vision of the common good over the individual rights of saloonkeepers and their patrons, saw saloon-smashing as justified, even necessary, to protect society from the consequences of intemperance. In contrast, smashing opponents, rejecting prohibitionist calls to regulate private behavior for the common good, prioritized saloonkeepers’ and patrons’ individual rights of life, liberty, and property.
Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 2023
This article studies Robert Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated (2009), an unabridged graphic... more This article studies Robert Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated (2009), an unabridged graphic novel of the first book of the Hebrew Bible that rankled critics anticipating that Crumb would invest the book’s ancient narratives with new, subversive meanings. For these detractors, Crumb’s Genesis Illustrated lacks the transgressive, rebellious qualities of his earlier comics. Contrary to this view, this essay uses Crumb’s storytelling involving Sarah to demonstrate how Crumb noticeably subverts Genesis’s androcentrism by adopting a feminist hermeneutics of suspicion that reveals a waning matriarchal priestess tradition implicit in the text and helps explain the confounding wife-sister and barren-mother motifs in Sarah’s story.
Women and Language, 2019
Introduced into every session of Congress from 1923 to 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) met... more Introduced into every session of Congress from 1923 to 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) met steady, organized resistance on its ultimately failed political journey that ended in 1982, just three states shy of ratification. For many female stakeholders in the protracted ERA controversy, support or opposition for the amendment hinged largely on the anticipated effect the amendment would have on existing labor protections for women. This essay explicates rhetorical shifts and continuities within the ERA controversy stemming from its storied relationship to debates over protective legislation. An analysis of the pro-ERA National Woman’s Party’s weekly newspaper Equal Rights and the anti-ERA Women’s Trade Union League’s newsletter Life and Labor Bulletin traces these prominent stakeholders’ active battle over what constituted “protection” and “equal rights.” Thus, this essay complicates the rhetorical history of the ERA, illuminating how constituencies on all sides of the debate claimed to best represent the interests of working women.
Rock Music Studies, 2014
Pussy Riot’s surprise punk prayer at the altar of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ Our Savior instiga... more Pussy Riot’s surprise punk prayer at the altar of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ Our Savior instigated significant controversy in Russia and resulted in the conviction of three Pussy Riot members on the charge of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” While the Russian Orthodox Church swiftly condemned the performance as blasphemous, Pussy Riot has contended that its punk prayer is consistent with the message of the Gospels. This study investigates the punk prayer controversy in relation to the figure of the holy fool, a radical behavioral model canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church and secularized in Russia’s literary and artistic traditions.
Ohio Communication Journal, 2010
Drawing on feminist liberation theology, this essay argues for an expansion of generic formulatio... more Drawing on feminist liberation theology, this essay argues for an expansion of generic formulations of prophetic rhetoric to explicitly include the discursive practices of female rhetors who exhibit the substantive and stylistic characteristics of prophecy codified in James Darsey’s (1997) The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America. Contrary to Darsey’s view that the prophetic tradition is inherently patriarchal, this essay advances the position that the Hebrew Bible’s "prophetic-liberating principle" provides a foundation from which to re-evaluate the a priori exclusion of female radicals from the prophetic genre. Thus, this essay openly resists any suggestion that the prophetic tradition, rooted in the books of the Hebrew Bible, is centered exclusively—or even primarily—around white male elites. In marking out a place for female radicals within the rhetorical canon as exemplars of this distinct tradition, this essay reinforces the generic requirement that candidates for inclusion within the prophetic genre have a legitimate claim to outsider status within their own social and/or political context.
Journal of Communication & Religion, 2008
This essay ventures to understand the overwhelmingly negative reception of The Woman's Bible amon... more This essay ventures to understand the overwhelmingly negative reception of The Woman's Bible among nineteenth century audiences not as a symptom of Stanton's rhetorical failing but rather as a sign of the prophetic ethos at work in her rhetorical choices. Focusing on Stanton's treatment of the Scriptural passages she found most offensive and foundational to female oppression (Genesis, Chapters 1-3), this essay seeks to provide an understanding of how Stanton's feminist interpretation of biblical accounts of the Creation and the Fall created controversy both within and outside the woman suffrage movement and functioned as part of a larger tradition of prophetic discourse.
The Forensic of Pi Kappa Delta, 2002
In the face of criticisms that traditional argumentation pedagogy promotes overly-adversarial dis... more In the face of criticisms that traditional argumentation pedagogy promotes overly-adversarial discursive inquiry that negatively affects decision-making processes, this article investigates the possibilities made available by considering dialogic modes of communication as complementary to the dialectical practices used to train advocates. Not wishing to privilege dialogue over dialectic, this analysis embraces a both-and orientation that affirms the enabling aspects of both of these modes of discourse and recognizes the potential for these approaches to complement and inform one another. To this end, this study first explores the nature of the criticisms of competitive approaches to argument and suggests the possibilities that emerge out of these critiques. Next, this essay examines the continuing suitability of traditional argumentation pedagogy for preparing advocates even in the wake of the criticisms discussed in the first section. Finally, this analysis considers dialogue, a mode of discourse that could possibly be fully integrated into contemporary argumentation practices to better meet the needs of an increasingly diverse public.
Conference Presentations by Kerith Woodyard
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Papers by Kerith Woodyard
Conference Presentations by Kerith Woodyard