Woods Receives National Award for Book, "Debating Women: Gender, Education, and Spaces for Argument"

Carly Woods wins the James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address

Debating Women: Gender, Education, and Spaces for Argument, 1835-1945 is an ambitious and impressive scholarly feat. Carly Woods has written a superb book. Woods significantly recasts the thesis that debate is civic education through deep historical research into how women at several colleges and universities in the West over the course of a century expanded both access to the activity and spaces for debate. Debating women, Woods shows, stood and delivered arguments, embodied their cases, and claimed the study and practice of argument, both for themselves and the public good. All told, Debating Women is a standout achievement in the study of rhetoric and public address, a lively reminder of the power of telling the stories of those who demanded to be heard, and a meticulously researched and creative contributor to contemporary contests over who gets to speak, when, how, and about what.