Digital Commons Network^™

Prose And Polarization: Environmental Literature And The Challenges To Constructive Discourse, Paige E. Costello

CMC Senior Theses

This work explores how authors employ literary modes to persuade readers towards one side or another of the environmental debate and whether the works promote constructive discourse on environmental issues. It uses two seminal works from each side of the environmental discourse, Silent Spring and The Population Bomb and The Ultimate Resource and The Skeptical Environmentalist, to analyze stylistic differences and similarities, to compare public reception, and to explain the increasing polarization of environmental discourse.

The Social Dimensions Of Fiction: On The Rhetoric And Function Of Prefacing Novels In The Nineteenth-Century Canadas, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven & Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. The Social Dimensions of Fiction: On the Rhetoric and Function of Prefacing Novels in the Nineteenth-Century Canadas. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher (Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn), 1993. ISBN 3-528-07335-7 188 pages, bibliography, index. Data and analyses of nineteenth-century English- and French-Canadian prefaces to novels with theoretical and methodological frameworks for the study of rhetoric, the sociology of literature, audience research, and genre studies. Copyright of the book was released to Tötösy de Zepetnek by Westdeutscher Verlag in 2003.

From Orators To Cyborgs: The Evolution Of Delivery, Performativity, And Gender, Victoria E. Willis

English Dissertations

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The purpose of this project is to provide a thorough account of delivery by tracing the history and evolution of delivery from antiquity to the present day in order to expose the spread and transmission of proto-masculine ideologies through delivery. By looking at delivery from an evolutionary perspective, delivery no longer becomes a tool of rhetoric, but the technology of rhetoric, evolving over time in the same way the system of rhetoric itself has evolved. Contemporary scholarship …

Sounds Carefully Crafted: Dionysius Of Halicarnassus And Literary Composition, Francisco Lopez

English Theses

Modern rhetoric takes many influences from the classical era, but aural components of rhetoric are not often included in rhetorical education. This paper examines the techniques used by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his essay On Literary Composition, where he explored the components of arrangement of words in clauses for greatest impact when read and spoken aloud. Dionysius utilized meter and aesthetic placement of words to create work that was technically skilled and appealing to the listener or reader.

Dionysius built on ideas from rhetoricians of 4^th and 5^th century BCE Athens for his definition of style. His writing …

The Ideas Of Man And Woman In Renaissance France: Print, Rhetoric, And Law By Lyndan Warner, Julie Campbell

Julie Campbell

No abstract provided.

The Ideas Of Man And Woman In Renaissance France: Print, Rhetoric, And Law The Ideas Of Man And Woman In Renaissance France: Print, Rhetoric, And Law By Lyndan Warner, Julie Campbell

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

The Ideas Of Man And Woman In Renaissance France: Print, Rhetoric, And Law By Lyndan Warner, Julie Campbell

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

A Rhetoric Of Change: Church Growth And Social Change At The Richmond Outreach Center, Rebekah Holbrook

Theses and Dissertations

The Richmond Outreach Center “The ROC” is an independent soulwinning megachurch in Richmond, Virginia. This thesis explores how rhetoric plays a role in the rapid growth of this urban church and considers the church’s response—rhetorically and politically—to the city’s social issues. Through a rhetorical analysis of sermons and written texts by Geronimo Aguilar, the ROC’s founder and pastor, it is concluded that Aguilar has generated a rhetoric of change that says social change must come to Richmond and that everyone, both rich and poor, are responsible for change. Aguilar galvanizes an audience to seek social change because he articulates roles …

Post-Mao Chinese Literary Women’S Rhetoric Revisited: A Case For An Enlightened Feminist Rhetorical Theory, Hui Wu

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

Identifying the specific complexities and historical context of post-Mao Chinese literary women's rhetoric, along with ways they have been misread, the author argues in general that Western feminist critics need to be cautious about applying their concepts to non-Western women's literature.

The Social Dimensions Of Fiction: On The Rhetoric And Function Of Prefacing Novels In The Nineteenth-Century Canadas, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. The Social Dimensions of Fiction: On the Rhetoric and Function of Prefacing Novels in the Nineteenth-Century Canadas. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher (Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn), 1993. ISBN 3-528-07335-7 188 pages, bibliography, index. Data and analyses of nineteenth-century English- and French-Canadian prefaces to novels with theoretical and methodological frameworks for the study of rhetoric, the sociology of literature, audience research, and genre studies. Copyright of the book was released to Tötösy de Zepetnek by Westdeutscher Verlag in 2003.

Negotiating Identity: Culturally Situated Epideictic In The Victorian Travel Narratives Of Isabella Bird, Katherine Reilly Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Epideictic rhetoric, one of the classical modes of persuasion described by Aristotle, has faced some criticism concerning its value in the realm of rhetoric. Though attitudes have been shifting over the last several decades, there is still a tendency to undervalue epideictic, falling back on the Aristotelian system of ceremonial oratory. However, its “praise and blame” style of persuasion employs of the type of rhetor / audience identification described by Kenneth Burke. Epideictic rhetoric is a major component of virtually any communication, as the speaker or writer seeks to create a bond with that audience so as to persuade them …

An Irresistible Invitation: Enhancing Academic Publication In Rhetoric And Composition By Inviting Online Peer Commentary, Sarah L. Cutler

Theses and Dissertations

In many ways the current publishing system in rhetoric and composition, which centers on the peer-reviewed journal, undermines core values we hold for ideal scholarly communication. These values include collaboration, dialogue, participation, and public engagement. Though the current system's methods of preserving, distributing, and maintaining quality control of scholarly work contradict our values, technological developments have made possible alternative publishing models that could better uphold our values. Developing a preprint archive where scholars develop and share ideas before submitting them for publication in traditional peer-reviewed journals would bring our publishing process closer to our ideals.

Theatrical Ideology: Toward A Rhetoric Theatricality, Jacob L. Robertson

Theses and Dissertations

When used in common vernacular, the terminology of the medium of theatre—"theatricality," "drama," "performance," "acting," "scene," etc."”form a vocabulary of "ideographs" as defined by Michael Calvin McGee. My analysis reveals that common usage of theatrical terms is more than merely metaphorical; the "theatre," rather, is a fundamental orienting concept for defining lived experience—it is ideology. By viewing the use of theatrical language as ideological, and analyzing how such terms define situations rhetorically, we begin to reveal the underlying ideology upon which the medium of theatre operates, and which it unconsciously conveys. I demonstrate this claim by analyzing the argument made …

Hypatia Of Alexandria, Cara Minardi

Graduate English Association New Voices Conference 2008

So I asked myself, what does it mean that there is not a single woman of note engaged in philosophy or rhetoric for more than 1500 years? The obvious answer until now has been that women during this era were oppressed and the lack of primary materials by ancient women is an indication of the reality of their oppression. In addition, feminist historiography is especially painstaking work and requires an enormous amount of time, knowledge, and/or motivation. Then, of course, even when historical women are recovered, scholars of historical rhetoric can resist newly recovered figures as meriting canonical status within …

The New Feminine Rhetoric: Wollstonecraft, Austen, And The Forms Of Romantic-Era Feminism, Elisabeth Louise Guyon

Theses and Dissertations

Countering traditional claims that the feminist movement all but vanished during the early nineteenth century, this thesis suggests feminism remained prominent in both the literature and rhetoric of the time. In tracing the development of the "New Rhetoric," a rhetorical movement that aimed to accommodate new principles of the Enlightenment, I focus in part on the rhetorical battle between Edmund Burke, with his Reflections on the Revolution in France, and Thomas Paine, with his Rights of Man. From there, I suggest that Mary Wollstonecraft, writing in the wake of the Burke-Paine debate and drawing upon the rhetorical philosophy of George …

Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales: Rhetoric And Gender In Marriage, Andrea Marcotte

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the Middle Ages, marriage represented a shift in the balance of power for both men and women. Struggling to define what constitutes the ideal marriage in medieval society, the marriage group of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales attempts to reconcile the ongoing battle for sovereignty between husband and wife. Existing hierarchies restricted women; therefore, marriage fittingly presented more obstacles for women. Chaucer creates the dynamic personalities of the Wife of Bath, the Clerk and the Merchant to debate marriage intelligently while citing their experiences within marriage in their prologues. The rhetorical device of ethos plays a significant role for …

Winning, Losing, And Changing The Rules: The Rhetoric Of Poetry Contests And Competition, Marc Pietrzykowski

English Dissertations

This dissertation attempts to trace the shifting relationship between the fields of Rhetoric and Poetry in Western culture by focusing on poetry contests and competitions during several different historical eras. In order to examine how the distinction between the two fields is contingent on a variety of local factors, this study makes use of research in contemporary cognitive neuroscience, particularly work in categorization and cognitive linguistics, to emphasize the provisional nature of conceptual thought; that is, on the type of mental activity that gives rise to conceptualizations such as “Rhetoric” and “Poetry.” The final portions of the research attempt to …

Moving Whiteness: Rhetoric And Political Emotion, Wendy Ryden

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Negotiation Through Identification: Elizabeth Tudor's Use Of Sprezzatura In Three Speeches, Alisa Brough

Theses and Dissertations

Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, weaves the courtier's strategy of sprezzatura throughout her public orations in order to help her identify with her audience of courtiers, scholars, and politicians. Through her use of sprezzatura, Elizabeth woos her audience and transcends the differences of opinion that lead to conflict between the Queen and her audience members. Using Kenneth Burke's theory of rhetoric as identification, this thesis employs rhetorical analysis in order to discover how Queen Elizabeth's use of sprezzatura enables her to portray herself as a humanist scholar, a political servant, and a dedicated defender of her country and thus, identify …

Determining Quality Through Audience, Genre, And The Rhetorical Canon: Imagining A Biography Of Eudora Welty For Children, Cindy Sheffield Michaels

English Theses

While numerous studies on academic writers composing for non-academic audiences exist, few if any studies address academic writers composing biographies for children. This self-reflective case study of a Eudora Welty biography for children provides insight into how an academic writer can effectively write in a specific genre (biography) for a specific audience (children) and into practical rhetorical choices such as choosing photographs and designing page layouts. The study also offers triangulated data regarding essential criteria of quality children’s literature as identified by experts in the field (editors, publishers, award committee members, scholars, and authors). The author’s findings include sixty-eight of …

Form B: Embodied Literacies Project, Jenn Fishman

English Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Rhizome National Identity: "Scatlin's Psychic Defense' In Trainspotting, Jennifer Jeffers

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Embodied Literacies Project, I, Jenn Fishman

Jenn Fishman

Feminism And The Public Sphere In Anne Brontë'S The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, Rachel Carnell

English Faculty Publications

The bipartite narrative structure of Anne Brontë's 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' (1848) has been interpreted recently as an attempt to subvert the traditional Victorian rubric of separate spheres. Reconsidering this novel in terms of Jürgen Habermas's concept of the 18th-century public sphere broadens the historical context for the way we understand the separate spheres. Within Brontë's critique of Victorian gender roles, we may identify a reluctance to address the Chartist-influenced class challenges to an older version of the public good. In hearkening back to an 18th-century model of the public sphere, Brontë espouses not so much a 20th-century-style challenge …