New anthology celebrates women's rhetorics of the 21st century

Persuasive Acts: Women’s Rhetorics in the Twenty-first Century, co-edited by Professor Shari Stenberg and alumna Charlotte Hogg, was published this month by University of Pittsburgh Press. Persuasive Acts gathers the work of artists, activists, bloggers, writers, politicians, and social media users to engage readers with a diverse array of women’s rhetorics, from speeches and podcasts to protest signs and Twitter threads.

The new anthology serves as a follow-up to Available Means: An Anthology of Women’s Rhetoric(s), the first and only collection of women’s speech and writing spanning over twenty-three centuries, from ancient Greece to 1999. Co-edited by former UNL faculty members Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald, Available Means remains a foundational text taught in women’s rhetoric classes across the country. Shari Stenberg and Charlotte Hogg sought to build upon that foundation, adding new voices that capture technological shifts, new political and civic issues, changing conceptions of gender, and other conversations of concern to women in the twenty-first century. Persuasive Acts allows readers to engage with a diversity of women, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michelle Obama, Bree Newsome, Malala Yousafzai, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jennine Capó Crucet, and Marjane Satrapi, among many others.

Shari Stenberg is Professor of English and Acting Director of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In addition to women’s rhetoric, her work centers on composition, critical and feminist pedagogies, and teaching and writing development. “Our students at UNL have added wonderful insight as I’ve discussed the process of anthologizing with them,” she writes, highlighting the book’s deep ties to both English and Women’s and Gender Studies at UNL.

Charlotte Hogg is Associate Professor of English at Texas Christian University. She received her both her B.A. and Ph.D. in English from the Department of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She specializes in composition theory, women’s and rural literacies, and creative nonfiction, as well as women’s rhetoric.

To purchase a copy or learn more about Persuasive Acts, visit the University of Pittsburgh Press website.