church, space; gender, race

Last night the IPRH-supported Rhetorical Studies Reading Group had the pleasure of hosting Roxanne Mountford from the University of Kentucky, author of The Gendered Pulpit and co-author (with Michelle Ballif and Diane Davis) of Women's Ways of Making it in Rhetoric and Composition.

Professor Mountford's work on the history of preaching in protestant spaces attends to the whole material swirl of bodies, gender, race, and belief in the context of space. Hers is that kind of research that nearly everyone can connect to in one way or another--either they have studied history of religious rhetoric, have a religious background themselves (think VBS or tent revivals, or maybe that's what I think because I'm from the south), have thoughtfully set aside religion, have given more than a passing thought to Jeremiah Wright, to megachurches, to Christian youth movements or mission work. Our discussion last night was even more wide-ranging.

One of the things I admire about Mountford's book is how it mixes historiography with ethnography. Last night we talked about how the two work together--in this case, historical work helps Mountford figure out how and when the pulpit became so masculinized, and ethnographic investigation helps her to explore the ways women are inhabiting those  masculinized spaces and, effectively, change them in the process. It's a complicated, time-consuming, and challenging set of methods, I'm sure, but seeing as how I have directed/am directing/ am planning to direct four dissertations that mix methods in a similar way, it sure was great to have an opportunity to reflect with her on that mixture. I've often thought about how both methods involve finding or developing a narrative arc, and how doing so requires laborious sifting and searching. Historians and ethnographers really ought to talk more across their methods.

Last night everybody munched on Antonio's pizza and posed thoughtful questions about sexuality in churches, about race and religion, about the African American Jeremiad tradition (which she focuses on in chapter 4 of her book), and about the role of the progressive church in combatting the liberal discourse of tolerance (hat tip goes to Sharon Crowley's Toward a Civil Discourse).

Roxanne also took advantage of having so many scholars from the "communication side" at the event to inquire about how the work "plays" with comm scholars. The answers covered a) what RM brings that rhetoric/communication scholars might not (e.g., ethnographic methods); b) the seeming welcoming of literary texts in communication; c) contextual expectations, and d) graduate student research in communication that RM's work has spurred.  I love these kinds of cross-disciplinary meta-conversations, and they are best when rooted, as ours was last night, in specific work rather than generalities. One communication graduate student, who immediately went home to draft a short document about his research trajectory mentions having been inspired by Mountford's focus on the importance of the progressive church for progressive politics in this country.

If you like what you're hearing, but don't happen to be in Urbana, don't despair! Professor Mountford, along with Patricia Bizzell, Shirley Wilson Logan, and Jane Donawerth will be co-leading a workshop at the Rhetoric Society of America's Institute this June in State College. Click here for details. 

Comments

[dave's not here]

Good to see RM is co-leading with Pat Bizzell. As I read your post, I thought of her essay on William Apess and the American jeremaid tradition which I include in my Native Am Lit course. Good stuff, especially given the history of "progressive" movements in relationship with native policy -- the Dawes Act, boarding schools, etc. -- often political efforts instantiated via religious bodies, itself a long tradition.

And mixed methods for research... don't get me started! As a participant-observer - textual critic - interview discourse analyst also interested in historical methods, let me just offer one suggestion: Mark Smith's work on sense history (http://tinyurl.com/6kuwah). He's got other articles, too, but I like his question about whether or not a description of sensory detail written 100 years ago can be replicated in the present. Fun stuff to play with/ think about.