Survivor Rhetoric

Book excerpt: Survivor Rhetoric is a collection of essays about the language of abused women and girls written by feminist scholars from a variety of disciplines, including literary studies, psychology, law, and criminal justice. Editors Christine Shearer-Cremean and Carol L. Winkelmann have compiled a wholly original volume where diversity issues are critical, and which includes narratives from U.S. Appalachian evangelicals, lesbian women represented in Canadian feminist educational tracks, an American convert to Judaism in the Middle East, and elite or highly educated women represented in the mainstream media. The genres through which the stories are told include police reports, memoirs, and shelter talk, and the methods and focuses of the writers vary across the essays and include rhetorical, thematic analysis, ethnographic, and literary analysis. Survivor Rhetoric concludes with a call for more holistic and local responses to the problem of violence against women and girl children – responses carefully attentive to language issues, informed by multiple perspectives, and in touch with global conversations.