The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Rhetoric, enterprise and professional authority: physicians and writing in twentieth-century France

Rhetoric, enterprise and professional authority: physicians and writing in twentieth-century France
Rhetoric, enterprise and professional authority: physicians and writing in twentieth-century France
The article examines the career of the little studied James-Edward Ruffier, a physician who won commercial success as well as political and popular renown as a physical culturist and natural health practitioner in France in the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the importance of writing for Ruffier’s business model. Writing across a range of genres, largely in self-published periodical titles, became a way to turn subscribers into clients. But in more diffuse ways it was also a bid to achieve broader social influence. The article identifies the rhetorical and performative strategies at the heart of this process, strategies that show that Ruffier was bringing to bear far more than his technical medical knowledge in the attempt to persuade the general public of the merits of his approach to life. It also seeks to situate Ruffier’s relationship to writing within the broader history of the ‘physician-writer’ in Third Republican France (1870-1940). Ruffier was one of many such figures, whose career trajectories have much to tell us about more general themes, including the medicalization of body culture in this period and the processes by which doctors acquired the kind of cultural authority that made them trusted voices on a range of issues within and beyond medicine.

0018-2648
125-148
Tumblety, Joan
8742e0ca-a9c0-4d16-832f-b3ef643efd7b
Tumblety, Joan
8742e0ca-a9c0-4d16-832f-b3ef643efd7b

Tumblety, Joan (2019) Rhetoric, enterprise and professional authority: physicians and writing in twentieth-century France. History, 104 (359), 125-148. (doi:10.1111/1468-229X.12725).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The article examines the career of the little studied James-Edward Ruffier, a physician who won commercial success as well as political and popular renown as a physical culturist and natural health practitioner in France in the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the importance of writing for Ruffier’s business model. Writing across a range of genres, largely in self-published periodical titles, became a way to turn subscribers into clients. But in more diffuse ways it was also a bid to achieve broader social influence. The article identifies the rhetorical and performative strategies at the heart of this process, strategies that show that Ruffier was bringing to bear far more than his technical medical knowledge in the attempt to persuade the general public of the merits of his approach to life. It also seeks to situate Ruffier’s relationship to writing within the broader history of the ‘physician-writer’ in Third Republican France (1870-1940). Ruffier was one of many such figures, whose career trajectories have much to tell us about more general themes, including the medicalization of body culture in this period and the processes by which doctors acquired the kind of cultural authority that made them trusted voices on a range of issues within and beyond medicine.

Text
JT Rhetoric, enterprise and professional authority - Author's Original
Restricted to Registered users only
Download (612kB)
Request a copy
Text
Revised 1.6.18 Rhetoric, enterprise and professional authority - Accepted Manuscript
Download (509kB)

More information

Submitted date: 2018
Accepted/In Press date: 18 November 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 11 January 2019
Published date: 11 January 2019
Additional Information: Special Issue: Medical Doctors and Persuasion
Organisations: History

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 411203
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/411203
ISSN: 0018-2648
PURE UUID: 08c2e282-2494-4b19-9d5b-ac490cf4cf7e

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 15 Jun 2017 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:25

Export record

Altmetrics

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×