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Contradictory Shakespeare: An Investigation Of Female Protagonists In Othello, Measure For Measure, And Pericles, Mingyue Xu

Student Theses and Dissertations

Unlike the stereotyped image of women in the Elizabethan era, in which women should submit to men’s control, Desdemona in Othello, Isabella in Measure for Measure, and Marina in Pericles present their powerful and brave characteristics when facing male dominance. More specifically, all three young women — Desdemona, Isabella and Marina — negotiate sexual and marital arrangements with their language intelligently, despite the fact that they sometimes lack self-determining power in the plays. That is to say, Shakespeare gives women rhetorical power while in certain circumstances, men cannot be persuaded. Such contradiction within how Shakespeare depicts his female …

Setting The Stage And Building Homes: Architecture Metaphors And Space In Donne's First Caroline Sermon, Alexander S. Laws

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through his use of "foundation" and "house" metaphors in his "First Sermon Preached to King Charles at St. James, 3 April 1625," John Donne discreetly presents his ideologies and principles before the new king, while simultaneously criticizing his contemporaries' misguided bickering over religio-political factions. This essay seeks to unpack the history surrounding, as well as the casuistical logic found within Donne's first sermon preached during the Caroline period, which both explicitly and implicitly addresses the foremost anxieties of the people of the changing age.

Adapting Environmental Ethics And Behaviors: Toward A Posthuman Rhetoric Of Community Engagement, Beth J. Shirley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

What persuades people one way or another to accept or deny climate change? More importantly, what persuades people to act on, ignore, or even be defiant of climate change? We would like to think that people are motivated when they hear the science explained clearly and when they are presented with a clear understanding of how their actions have a lasting impact. Yet the science on climate change has been made clear for some time, and doubt in climate change science is rampant (at least in the United States).

This dissertation seeks to answer these questions and develop a new …

Utilizing Visual Rhetoric: A New Approach To Comics, Superheroes, And Red Suns, Tabitha Rose-Ann Zarate

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Comics and graphic texts require complex engagement from readers, engagement that relies on a developed understanding of text and image, and how they interact to create meaning. There are several theories about how readers engage with comics, many from comic creators themselves, and some from scholars in literature and composition. This project introduces an approach to comics utilizing visual rhetoric, which reconsiders the stricter text/image dynamics often conceptualized in Comics Studies, includes the reader as creator, and explores comics as collaboratively created texts. This approach is applied to Superman: Red Son, a popular text that focuses in on Superman, …

Cultivating A New Educator: Teacher And Students Sharing Growth, Megan Campbell

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This is Megan Campell-Looney's final portfolio for her M.A. in English (with a specialization in teaching). It includes a reflective narrative and four revised pieces: "A Murderous Moral Tale: Depictions of the Ideal Victorian in Wilkie Collins' Jezebel's Daughter," "Critical Thinking and Counseling Through the Power of Literature," Developing an American Identity: Syllabus and Assignment Plan," and "Evolving and Adapting Rhetoric and Theory: Indigenous Theory Writing Back." The portfolio focuses on research and study that developed Looney's classroom pedagogy and philosophy. Students and educators both must write back to gain the agency needed for growth.

Journey’S End: A Final Ma Portfolio, Rachel Evans

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Designed for and rooted in the power of revision and growth over the course of a degree's worth of learning, this is a final portfolio completed for BGSU's Master's of Arts in English degree.

When Process Becomes Processing: Managing Instructor Response To Student Disclosure Of Trauma In The Composition Classroom, Kelci Barton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In first-year composition courses, there are three aspects of teaching that are researched well so far: disclosure of trauma in student writing, instructor feedback, and emotional labor. The disclosure of trauma is almost completely unavoidable in first-year composition. We encounter an issue with instructor feedback; how do we provide feedback to student writing, like grammar and mechanics, when the student has disclosed trauma in the writing? Additionally, we can build off this with emotional labor, which already occurs consistently in teaching but is heightened in this instance. When providing feedback to a student who has disclosed trauma, this can be …

On The Variations Of 'Occupatio' In "Richard Ii", William Kelly Reeder

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent scholarship of Shakespeare’s Richard II has been interested in or preoccupied with its historical relations. Particularly the plays association with the Essex Rising of 1601, and the censorship of the deposition scene, both of which seem to resonate for history with Elizabeth’s enigmatic comment expressing her identification with Shakespeare’s portrayal of Richard II.

This paper proposes to resolve the question of the play’s censorship by interpreting the deposition scene as a dramatization of transubstantiation, perhaps triggering Elizabethan censors.

Transubstantiation is the doctrine by which the Catholic Church interprets the Eucharist using the distinction between substance and accidens (eternal and …

Remaking Identities, Reworking Graduate Study : Stories From First-Generation-To-College Rhetoric And Composition Phd Students On Navigating The Doctorate., Ashanka Kumari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation responds to the decreasing number of first-generation-to-college doctorates in the humanities and the limited scholarship on graduate students in Rhetoric and Composition. Scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have long been invested in discussions of academic and/or disciplinary enculturation, yet these discussions primarily focus on undergraduate students, with few studies on graduate students and far fewer on the doctoral students training to become the next wave of a profession. In this dissertation, I argue that if we engage intersectional identities as assets in the design of doctoral programs, access to higher education and academic enculturation can become more manageable …

“Chosen Instruments”: Tolkien’S Hobbits And The Rhetoric Of The Dispossessed, Samuel Bennett Watson

Theses and Dissertations

Tolkien’s hobbit characters are capable of a particular type of rhetorical persuasion, one which relies on their ability to leverage their status as outsiders among the other people of Middle-earth. The hobbits are uniquely suited to the task of bringing unity to Middle-earth’s people because of the simplicity of their rhetoric, which focuses on proving their own morality and presenting truths without elaboration. When compared with the text, the film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings also help highlight the importance that Tolkien placed on the simplicity of hobbit rhetoric. These abilities of the hobbits become clear through a …

Troll-In-Chief: Donald Trump, Antinomic Rhetoric, And The Short-Circuiting Of Civic Discourse, Joseph Wayne Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

On November 9, 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. No aspect of the campaign was more remarkable than Trump’s rhetoric, which ranged from the candid and unexpected to the crude and incendiary. Now, two years later, his rhetoric—and the reasons for its widespread appeal—remain largely opaque, even under examination from proto-fascist or populist lenses. I seek for a partial account of Trump’s rhetoric using the concept of antinomic rhetoric coupled with the widespread popular perception of him as similar to an internet troll. In short, I believe it is his violation of the conventional standards (nomoi) …

Visionary Pastiche : Hildegard Von Bingen's Reconciliation Of Divine Experience And Representation, Rachel Lynn Gamarra

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Hildegard von Bingen invents a new rhetorical topos—that of prismatic refraction—which allows her to communicate her divine revelation to others through narrative, artwork, and explication. While her patristic counterparts, Augustine and Jerome, think about rendering the divine only as it relates to their understanding of Scripture, Hildegard exploits rhetoric in order to push the boundaries of human epistemology through grappling with her unique mystical experience. Though Hildegard recognizes that there is a degree of difference between her visions and her representation of them, Hildegard still finds value in language as a communicative tool. Hildegard refracts her divine experience in Scivias, …