Digital Commons Network^™

Negotiating Identities: Appalachian Voices In Academia, Cameron J. Rogers

Masters Theses

This study reports the experiences of five Appalachian students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The investigation seeks to understand how students from Appalachia negotiate their identities in their academic writing and, as a result, suggests implications of current writing assessment measures related to Standard American English conventions. Participants completed semi-structured interviews to explain their experiences with preconceptions about Appalachia, feedback on their writing, and negotiations of identities in their writing. Based on interview responses and current literature, this study provides a deeper understanding about the relationship between personal and academic identities and how writing feedback from instructors affects both …

The Opposite Of Subaltern Agency Is Not Agency, It’S Listening: Self-Guided Anti-Racism Investigation For Aspiring White Anti-Racists, Lauren Elaine Specht

Doctoral Dissertations

This research project examines the rhetorical relationship between oppressed and privileged communities, first to look at how oppressed communities can have more success in their outreach to change privileged points of view, then to examine that “success” of social advocacy is as bound up in the listener’s ability to hear as it is in the speaker’s ability to persuade and that the oppressed community is already using the most successful rhetorical tools available—privileged audiences are just not participating. To complete the first process, I used textual analysis to understand how an oppressed rhetor—represented by Toni Morrison—thinks of privileged perspectives in …

Disney Princess Films: Feminist Movements And The Changing Of Gender Roles, Mckinley M. Frees

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

When “A Haircut Is Not Just A Haircut”: The Embodied Deconversions Of Former Pentecostal And Holiness Women, Casey Renee Kellogg

Masters Theses

Women of Pentecostal and Holiness belief traditions are known for embodying their faith through a set of dress standards which prevent women from cutting their hair, prohibit any form of pants, jewelry, or makeup, and require they adopt various forms of “modest” attire. While there has been significant scholarship on the social and personal significance of women’s religious dress among church members, there is little to no information about how former Pentecostal and Holiness women perceive these dress standards. Furthermore, while scholars have explored the concept of deconversion, specifically as told through narrative from a more general vantage point, there …

The Internet Isn’T Forever: Early Internet Fan Archives, Their Stewards, Lifespans, And The Political Nature Of The Deaths Of Their Queer Communities, Grey D. Mangan

Masters Theses

The concept of a “forever Internet” has been pervasive in the modern digital age, but the degradation of fan archives from the late 1990s and 2000s seems to tell a different story; as such, we find ourselves in the midst of a Digital Dark Age and we are losing independent digital fan archives quickly- what is happening and how can we save this digital cultural memory, particularly queer cultural memory? To lose these fan archives is to lose valuable insight into the lives and communities of the individuals who interacted in these spaces. By utilizing the lenses of play, theft, …

Expendable To Essential: Conceptualizing The Rhetorical Othering Of Frontline Workers, Sarah Sexton

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Reviewer Perceptions Of Englishes In The International Journal Of Nuclear Security, Rachel Brooks

Masters Theses

Linguistic bias in academic publishing, the idea that a manuscript would be rejected due to its language alone, is a growing area of concern and study. Scholars are particularly concerned that EAL (English as an Additional Language, often referred to as “non-native”) writers face this bias more than first-language English authors. The research on linguistic bias relies on understanding the perceptions about language that belong to reviewers, authors, and other parties involved in publication. This MA thesis project investigates peer reviewer perceptions of English language usage in the manuscripts that they review using the International Journal of Nuclear Security (IJNS) …

Misticismo Y Arcadismo En El Villancico Novohispano. Manuel De Sumaya Y Sus Contemporáneos, Luciana Kube Tamayo

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

El siglo XVIII trajo consigo una evolución estilística vertiginosa en todas las artes. La plástica, la literatura y la música confluyen y sirven de soporte a un arte nuevo, el Rococó. La floración churrigueresca está intensamente presente, además de en lienzos y biombos, en el vocabulario de la lírica de la Nueva España; a la vez que se afianzan los modelos religiosos, por un lado, se asientan los modelos pastoriles por otro. En cuanto a la espiritualidad, los modelos se encuentran encajados en la miniatura poética y el ingenio dieciochesco, desbordante de naturaleza y fantasía. En el presente trabajo me …

Critical Pedagogy And Accountability: An Autoethnographic Analysis Of Race And Embodiment In Tennessee's Teacher Evaluations, Rebecca C. Napreyeva

Masters Theses

The current social climate within the United States has pushed antiracist pedagogies to the forefront of educational discourse in primary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions. Given the fact that the vast majority of public school teachers in primary and secondary schools are white females, the particular ways they approach the instruction of their minority students is of significant importance, as their cultural perspectives are disproportionately represented in classrooms across the country.

This study uses an autoethnographic approach combined with scholarship in critical pedagogy and critical race theory to examine 1) the particular ways that cultural conflict manifests between white female teachers …

The Political Turn In First-Year Composition: Student And Instructor Perspectives On Politics, Demagoguery, And Democratic Deliberation, Jacob T. Buller-Young

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the presence and perceptions of politics in first-year composition (FYC) courses. Though the “political turn” of composition studies has been the subject of much scholarship since the 2016 election, very little empirical research has been conducted in this area. As a result, this study seeks to fill that gap with empirical, mixed-methods research that examines the political perceptions of both students and instructors in FYC courses.

I begin this work by reviewing the long, fraught history of politics in rhetorical education and propose several frameworks that are helpful for clarifying this debate, …

What's In A Mode: Writing Program Administrators' Perception, Value, And Implementation Of Multimodality In First-Year Writing, Carolyn Alice Johnston

Doctoral Dissertations

This study focuses on writing program administrators’ (WPAs) views towards the definition and value of multimodality within their first-year writing program curriculum. Furthermore, the study seeks to discover how first-year writing programs go about integrating a multimodal focus, including support structures that are in place, such as training, equipment, technology, and other resources. Multimodality has become a popular topic of discussion for those in Rhetoric/Composition, yet its program-wide implementation remains low. This study updates a 2005 study published in Composition Studies, which provided an overview of what participants labeled as multimodal or new media for their Composition classroom instruction (Anderson, …

A Maker's Perspective Of Materiality: Observing Material Change Through Legacy Craftsmanship, Maker Intent, And Contemporary Manifestation, Adam Swift

Masters Theses

Simple handmade objects have important stories to tell about the hands that made them and the environments they pass through. This project observes the thinking, materials, and process involved in craft work through the lens of materiality. I wrestle with materiality by presenting a personal making project, in front of L.C. King Mfg. Co., a Tennessee workwear company that maintains century-old manufacturing practices and values. With the interactive – and interdisciplinary – perspective of cultural rhetoric as the guiding theoretical framework, this display of both freshly created (the leather bag project) and progressively experienced (the chore coat) material realities aims …

The Remediation Of Paralinguistic Features For The Construction Of Epistemic Stance In Online Vegan Communities, James R. Shepard Iii

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I examine how members of online vegan communities construct and perform epistemic stance through exploiting the affordances of alphabetic computer-mediated communication (CMC) to remediate paralinguistic features. The data are taken from two exchanges across two different online platforms: Facebook and Reddit. Working within the constraints of alphabetic CMC and the affordances of their respective platforms, interactants discuss vegan activism in ways that mimic traditional oral communication. Utilizing unique linguistic constructions and features of CMC such as emoji and emoticons, interactants are able to clearly perform their affective and epistemic stances as well as demonstrate what McCulloch calls …

El Quijote En Alcalá De Henares: Graffiti, Arte Urbano Y Autorrepresentación, Juan Fernandez Cantero

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

En el presente trabajo se realizará un estudio de los procesos culturales existentes en la ciudad de Alcalá de Henares en la actualidad a través del arte urbano. Concretamente, se analizarán las representaciones del Quijote, personaje universal de Miguel de Cervantes, en el casco antiguo y en los barrios periféricos de la urbe. Se demostrará cómo la figura del Quijote es un medio para la autorrepresentación de la ciudad. Más allá de las decisiones políticas sobre el arte urbano en el centro histórico de la ciudad, se verá cómo la iconografía del Quijote se consolida como un elemento cohesivo para …

Metaphor Theory And Its Relation To Social Policy, Victoria Anita Voorhees

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Intersectionality Between Blm And Muslim Communities: An Analysis Of The Black Lives Matter Movement In Relation To Sapelo Square And Muslimarc, Noreen Premji

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Color-Blind Stancetaking In Racialized Discourse, Abigail Christine Tobias-Lauerman

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I examine how language constructs and constrains racialized discourse in post-Jim Crow contemporary America. Drawing on rhetorical and sociolinguistic work set forth by Booth, Shotwell, Bonilla-Silva, Omi and Winant, and others, it is apparent that racial organization— and racial identities and categorization— in the US is reliant upon specific markers that signify racial meaning. Such markers are assimilated into wider, unconscious discourse through what Shotwell and Booth describe as seemingly inherent— yet ultimately constructed— matters of “common sense,” and are expressed through evaluative stance acts. I explore the origins and construction of these markers and the relationship …

Troubles At Coal Creek: Rhetorics Of Writing, Research, And The Archive, Sumner Stevenson Brown

Masters Theses

Digging through the past can uncover painful truths. As such, historiography that does not acknowledge negotiated spaces, cultural erasures, and flexible frameworks may fall short. It may limit both breadth and depth of the past, thereby (re)producing erasures, whereas a reflexive theoretical framework delivers not only depth and breadth, but it also adds texture and dimension to historical writing and research processes. It is for these purposes that the value of alternative methodologies is not situated at the margins of the rhetorical canons. Instead, it is embedded in the very core of the canons, defined as an element that works …

“/Entee Min Faine/? [Where Are You From?]": The Rhetoric Of Nationality Of Muslim Women In The American Southeast, Bushra Mohammad Malaibari

Doctoral Dissertations

Nationality is a powerful modern concept. It allows people legal and political rights, but nationality is also rooted in our language. Nationality is essential to designate populations together as an entity. But in America, where individualism is essential, nationality can be expressed in various ways. Historically, there is little research done on the construction of nationality from a rhetorical lens. This project aims to investigate that very issue. Moreover, the sampled population was Muslim women in the American Southeast to rarify and observe a marginalized group. The primary research question of this project is, “How do Muslim women articulate their …

The Liberal As An Enemy Of Queer Justice, Craig Schamel

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Abstract

Liberalism as a historical mode of the political is the context in which the movement and ensuing struggle for queer justice emerged in most Western countries. The terminology, practices, tendencies, beliefs, ethics, laws, and patterns of political and social life which have been determined by this mode of the political, it is argued, are inimical to queer justice and render its achievement impossible. Liberalism as a mode of the political is approached from below, from knowledge gained in practical experience in queer groups which considered themselves revolutionary at least to some degree, and from the effects on such groups …

Military Virtue In Roman Rhetorical Education, Anthony Edward Zupancic

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the connection between rhetoric and military culture in the early Roman Empire. Despite obvious references to the military and martial virtues, little scholarly attention has been directed to exploring the possibilities located within this connection. This dissertation is an alternative cultural history of rhetorical theory and pedagogy that draws on close reading and philology, as well as performance and metaphor theory. In building on the cultural history of Rome, I introduce a concept of “military virtue” that expands on understandings of the Roman notion of virtus (virtue) found in recent scholarship. Since virtue in the ancient world …

Where The Roads Meet: Intersecting Perspectives On Community Literacy, Valerie Segar Spence

Masters Theses

This project is an exploration of the term community literacy from multiple perspectives including academic research, local expertise, and personal experience. Utilizing a conceptual and organizational framework based on the model of popular education, this inquiry draws on data gathered from published literature, qualitative interviews, and personal narrative. Juxtaposing these viewpoints creates an enriched foundation for planning future action and responds to calls to include people from within and beyond academic contexts in work that they collaboratively define. This report explores the patterns that emerge from the way that the people represented here describe their experiences related to community literacy. …

Religious Tones And Overtones In The Human Sufficiency Arguments Of Marx And Nietzsche, Norman Rudolph Saliba

Masters Theses

It is often assumed that since Marx and Nietzsche were both anti-religious thinkers, religion played no part in the formulation of their philosophical outlooks. With this assumption, the influence of historical religions on rhetoric has received a subordinate role, if at all, in the discourse on 19^th century German critiques of those very religions. Although differing fundamentally in the debate on inclusiveness versus individuality, this essay asserts that Marx and Nietzsche, both from families of religious scholars, broke with previous philosophical tradition and utilized a religious form of rhetoric in their writings to combat doctrines of human deficiency inherent …

“I Guess Someone Forgot To Ask Us If We Wanted To Be America’S Diversity Mascots”: The Identity Journey Of Transracial, Transnational, Korean Adoptees, Molly Jin Ah Rigell

Masters Theses

Korean, transracial, international adoptees (TRIAs) have been given an opportunity to tell their stories in the anthologies Seeds of a Silent Tree, Voices from Another Place, and More Voices. Through an examination of twelve stories from these three anthologies, I pinpoint issues that are faced by TRIAs who were raised in white families, and the significance these issues hold. I also discuss the unique perspectives displayed in each anthology, and the overall view of racial identity that can be observed through the study of a unique community. Through their status as in-between races and cultures, Korean, transracial, international adoptees can …

I, Too, Am Harvard: A Black Higher Education Narrative, Tara Nicole Rayers

Masters Theses

On November 2nd, 2012 Sarah R. Siskind wrote an opinion editorial for Harvard’s student newspaper that initiated critical and frequently demeaning conversations on campus about the place of minorities in higher education. In this thesis, I examine a response to this editorial and the conversations that surrounded it, a response which began with 50 black students at Harvard, but expanded to include (as of November, 2014) students in at least 45 different universities in 9 different countries. I argue that this response, entitled the “I, Too” campaign, serves as an example of an empowering social justice movement. In particular, I …

The Academic Writing Of Evangelical Undergraduates, Emily Ann Cope

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to better describe and understand the academic writing and experiences of evangelical undergraduates at a public university. Previous composition studies have drawn attention to undergraduate diversity and the role of religious rhetorics in writing classrooms. However, because much of the existing scholarship identifies evangelical students by their “problematic” writing, the field has focused on writing that does not conform to academic expectations and is obviously faith-motivated. Additionally, because most composition studies of religious student writing report on classroom anecdotes, it has prioritized instructors’ experiences rather than student experiences. In contrast, this dissertation used qualitative …

From God Terms To Gaga: The Bad Romance Between Motherhood And Female Suffragists In American Film, Mary Ellis Glymph

Masters Theses

Ninety-five years ago, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by Congress, and women across America were given the right to vote. Nearly a century later, the long-gone figure of the female suffragist continues to subtly permeate American film, a reoccurrence that is not easily justified. Why would viewers in the English-speaking world continue an interest in a historically-contextualized feminist that seems, at first, to have little to do with what a “modern-day feminist” portrays?

Although the woman that history calls the suffragette hasn’t existed in America since 1920, representations of her in film and visual media have reminded viewers that this …

Manufacturing Coalition: Cooperation, Solidarity, And Sisterhood In The New York Women's Trade Union League, 1906-1919, Marybeth Poder

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how the rhetorical postures of coalition within the meeting minutes, officers’ reports, and Annual Reports of the New York Women’s Trade Union League between 1906 and 1919 contributed to the League’s ability to overcome the many economic, cultural, ideological, and gender differences that acted as barriers to their unified action to improve the lives and working conditions of women wage earners. Within the Literature Review and Methodology section, I first explore the scholarly roots of my project in recent rhetorical and women’s historiographic endeavors as well as in the work of labor and feminist historians, and then …

Graduate Teaching Assistants' Development Of Expertise In Teaching First-Year Composition, Carolyn Anne Wisniewski

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to learn about the processes by which novice college composition teachers develop pedagogical thinking, including how graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) respond to new teaching challenges. While previous composition studies research on GTA preparation has emphasized the influence of prior writing and classroom experience, we still have gaps in our knowledge about novice instructors’ learning and development, including about the role of reflective practice in shaping pedagogical thinking and classroom instruction. Using qualitative research methods, this study sought to construct an account of the processes by which GTAs reflect upon and react to teaching challenges. …

Composing, Remembering, And Performing Identity At Charles Towne Landing, 1966 Through 1971: Rhetorical Identification As Defensive And Antagonistic Strategies, Deidre Anne Evans Garriott

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation contributes to the growing body of research in rhetorical studies of identity theory. In this dissertation, I look at alternative texts that seek to construct and forward communal identities. In particular, this dissertation investigates Charles Towne Landing, a historical state park in Charleston, South Carolina, to study the ways historical sites of public memory are sites of rhetorical identification.

The State of South Carolina’s legislature authorized a body called the South Carolina Tricentennial Commission to plan and execute a celebration of South Carolina’s three-hundredth anniversary, which would take place in 1970. The commission planned and built three parks …