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"Our Kind Of Communication": Rhetorical Discoveries Of A Resonant Communicative Philosophy On Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Olivia Marilee Warfield
"Our Kind Of Communication": Rhetorical Discoveries Of A Resonant Communicative Philosophy On Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Olivia Marilee Warfield
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project investigates what Mr. Fred Rogers referred to as "our kind of communication" in a 1969 Senate testimony wherein he was awarded twenty million dollars to fund continuation of his children's educational television program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. I ask how "our kind of communication" manifests throughout the series' thirty-three year run and then contextualize the communicative mode's significance in the present day. I position this study as a communicative, philosophical inquiry which connects issues of pedagogy, rhetoric, epistemology, and ontology. First, I ground the study in relevant literature regarding mass media and (public) television, rhetorical televisual framing, an amended …
How To Avoid Becoming The Accomplice To Your Own Murderers: Reading James Baldwin As A Critical Pedagogue, Breana Shrease Miller
How To Avoid Becoming The Accomplice To Your Own Murderers: Reading James Baldwin As A Critical Pedagogue, Breana Shrease Miller
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
James Baldwin is a well-known author and activist in American literature. He had long been a champion of civil rights, using his platform to speak about the iniquities and issues affecting black people in America. Though his work is read often in literary circles, his writing could serve to supplement the field of critical pedagogy with Rhetoric and Composition. Paulo Freire, the conceiver of critical pedagogy through his foundational text Pedagogy of the Oppressed, identified the pitfalls of educational systems that see teachers as knowledge-givers and students as knowledge receptacles based on his experiences teaching illiterate adults in Brazil under …
Attaining Scientific Literacy Through A Rhetoric Of Science Composition Pedagogy, Stephen C. Smith
Attaining Scientific Literacy Through A Rhetoric Of Science Composition Pedagogy, Stephen C. Smith
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
For the past sixty years, acquiring scientific literacy has proven to be a daunting task in education, especially for undergraduate nonscience majors. Although some education scholars have recognized the importance and use of arguments to teach science, these pedagogical practices often are aimed at primary school children rather than college students or involve reporting science experiments rather than actually studying or constructing arguments about issues related to science.However, in this dissertation, I contend that educators often neglect a more available tool that not only examines arguments concerning scientific issues but also demonstrates the very heart of scientific literacy: critical thinking. …
From Impressionism To Impressions: Intertextuality, Rhetoric, And Signifyin' In John Coltrane's Impressions, Jeremy Noel Grall
From Impressionism To Impressions: Intertextuality, Rhetoric, And Signifyin' In John Coltrane's Impressions, Jeremy Noel Grall
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Often the term improvisation gives the impression that the music spontaneously materializes from nothing; however, how spontaneous is it really? David Borgo aptly characterizes this conundrum, "To improvise requires the capacity to act, and, for it to mean anything at all it must surely be 'about' something, a common definition of intentionality." Jean-Jacques Nattiez's Discourse on Musicdiscusses this intent and its place within a larger societal context through his adaptation of Molino's tripartition. This is a process in which our broader aesthetic valuation of style influences our creativity and is reflected in a tangible piece of music, which is then …
Kenneth Burke's Adolescence, 1915-1920: An Archival Study Of Influence, William Ernest Schraufnagel
Kenneth Burke's Adolescence, 1915-1920: An Archival Study Of Influence, William Ernest Schraufnagel
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation applies the method of influence studies to the archive of communication theorist Kenneth Burke (1897-1993) between the years 1915-1920. During this time, Burke was influenced by British and French aesthetic writers along with some philosophy and the writings of Cicero. As he was not conventionally trained in an academic discipline, this study shows how Burke’s theory of communication began to emerge from these disparate strands.The strongest influence on Burke during this time was the novel Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater. As Harold Bloom’s theory of influence teaches, strong writers such as Burke “misread,” or willfully distort, their …
Disabled Women On Saturday Night Live: Ideological Constructions And Cultural Contradictions, Kristen Ann Hungerford
Disabled Women On Saturday Night Live: Ideological Constructions And Cultural Contradictions, Kristen Ann Hungerford
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This study examines representations of women with disabilities in sketch comedy. Previous scholarship on this topic has found disabled women figures in popular culture to be represented through a trope of otherness that situates their bodies as incomplete, defective, and lacking value. Typically, representations of disabled persons reinforce their corporeal differences and deviances. As a popular culture artifact, Saturday Night Live (SNL) provides a platform for representations of disability. My study is situated within the field of critical disability studies to offer further insights into how disabled women characters represent portrayals of resistance that go against normative culture to define …
The Appointment Of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: When The Confirmation Process And Abortion Politics Collide, Kristen Howell Ball
The Appointment Of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: When The Confirmation Process And Abortion Politics Collide, Kristen Howell Ball
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Despite unanimous confirmation by the Senate, President Reagan's 1981 nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the United States Supreme Court was not without controversy. As a rhetorical form, any confirmation process is fundamentally about determining whether a candidate will protect liberty. The study of O'Connor's confirmation not only increases scholarly understanding of the confirmation process as a rhetorical form but it also complicates the rhetorical narratives of both the women's and conservative movements. While her nomination was groundbreaking for women, it would also become a battle to define the future of political conservatism, specifically the emerging controversy around abortion rights. …
Living Your Best Life: Identities Of Televangelist Joel Osteen And His Imagined Audience, Reginald Bell Jr.
Living Your Best Life: Identities Of Televangelist Joel Osteen And His Imagined Audience, Reginald Bell Jr.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
How does one analyze the impact of televangelist Joel Osteen? Attempts have been made to answer this question primarily from a theological perspective and occassionally from cultural and media perspectives. Though these analytical lenses have provided some limited insight into Osteen, his rise to prominence, and the growth of his ministry, none has sufficiently addressed or critcally analyzed Osteen's discursive artistry. Utilizing important analytical principles and research tools from the field of Communication, this dissertation provides three new critical lenses: first persona, second persona, and third persona. These lenses will help televangelist studies uncover the artistry and compliexity of how …
Identifying The American Incognitum: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Science, Religion, And American Identity Of The Early Republic, Sarah Mosher
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The science of paleontology developed alongside the emergence of the nation. The paleontological writings of the early relublic, which focused on identifying the mammoth and the mastodon, included more than their scientific contributions. The methods for this thesis include the use of a generative rhetorical analysis on eight paleontological writings published between 1767-1799 by the Royal Society of London, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. This thesis reveals the presence of eighteenth century religious conflicts with science, the rhetorical techniques of the naturalists, and aspects of the American spirit found in the development of …
Piercing The Religious Hinge: Understanding Religio-Civic Controversy Through Analogical Argument, Brian Clair Heslop
Piercing The Religious Hinge: Understanding Religio-Civic Controversy Through Analogical Argument, Brian Clair Heslop
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Religion's place in American society has been locked in a binary, seen either as an inappropriate societal "mind trap" or indispensable for community-building. I posit that this binary, or what I call the "religious hinge," limits how we view religion in the public sphere and constrains our understanding of democracy. My project seeks to pierce the current confining view of "religion-as-disease-or-cure" and open up our understanding of public conflict. I approach this task by moving past the abstract questions concerning church and state and examining analogical arguments in particular religio-civic controversies. I examine points of resistance between agonists through a …
Anarchy Is Order: Confronting The Definitional Tension In The Vanguard Group's Anarchism, Merci Michelle Decker
Anarchy Is Order: Confronting The Definitional Tension In The Vanguard Group's Anarchism, Merci Michelle Decker
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The fall of the global economy in 1929 set into motion a number of events, which would later influence scholars in rhetoric and other fields. While anarchists were active during this decade, attention is rarely drawn to their contribution. Anarchism is interesting rhetorically, because the term's orgins, past usage, and current usage often present competing definitions of meaning. This creates a definitional rupture in which the meaning of the term must constantly be negotiated. In my dissertation I argue that in order for the term "anarchism" to be truly comprehended, scholars must acknowledge its rhetorical character, which resides in the …
The Post-Termination Rhetoric Of The American Restoration Movement, Jonathan Franklin Woodall
The Post-Termination Rhetoric Of The American Restoration Movement, Jonathan Franklin Woodall
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation provides a rhetorical analysis of the post-termination rhetoric produced in the book The Living Pulpit of the Christian Church shortly after the termination of the American Restoration Movement in 1866. The termination event consisted of two happenings in the same year, the death of the movement’s rhetorical leader Alexander Campbell and the end of the Civil War. While several rhetorical studies focus on Alexander Campbell, this work focuses on the management of his influence after he died as the Movement faced new rhetorical problems in the reconstruction postwar period. The Living Pulpit claimed to celebrate the Movement’s unity, …
"Talking It Over" With Hillary: Domestic And Global Advocacy, 1995-2000, Melody Joy Lehn
"Talking It Over" With Hillary: Domestic And Global Advocacy, 1995-2000, Melody Joy Lehn
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In July of 1995, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first “Talking It Over” column premiered in newspapers across the country and the globe. Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles, which produced and circulated this weekly syndicated column, has archived two hundred and ninety-one columns on their website. Dropped and suspended by many publications throughout its duration, “Talking It Over” was a controversial journalistic endeavor for its author, who was simultaneously accused of writing in a fashion that was “too political” and “not political enough.” Consequently, the existing scholarly appraisals of “Talking It Over” depict this column as being either incidental or …
An Appeal To The World: The Controversial Rhetoric Of Samuel Adams, Patrick Samuel Loebs
An Appeal To The World: The Controversial Rhetoric Of Samuel Adams, Patrick Samuel Loebs
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Samuel Adams is a well-known member of the American revolutionary era. A politician by trade, his writings are credited by some as sparking a flame which led to independence. Communicating primarily through his writings in official Massachusetts documents and articles in the Boston area newspapers, Adams was a significant figure of the time. Yet history has routinely characterized his persuasive techniques with varying degrees of honor or disgust. Shortly after the revolution, he was thought of in glowing terms, yet by the late 1800s, the name of Samuel Adams was associated with malicious demagoguery and propaganda. Interestingly, however, these characterizations …
The Rhetorical Situation Of Facebook, Justin L. Suiter
The Rhetorical Situation Of Facebook, Justin L. Suiter
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The online social network Facebook is a site of ocnsiderable rhetorical activity. Because it exists at the frontier of Web 2.0 or "new media" technology, this rhetorical activity has certain novel features that require an expansion of the concept of rhetorical situation. I apply Lloyd Bitzer's original theory of rhetorical situation to the context of Facebook in order to highlight the ways in which technological advances and shifts in theory necessitate a broader understanding of rhetorical situations. I argue that two of Bitzer's three essential elements, constraints and audience, are applicable to Facebook but must be adapted to suit its …
A Burkeian Analysis Of The Embryo In The Congressional Debate Over Federally Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research (1998-2001), Sharese Willis
A Burkeian Analysis Of The Embryo In The Congressional Debate Over Federally Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research (1998-2001), Sharese Willis
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Abstract Willis, Sharese. Ph.D. The University of Memphis. May 2010. A Burkeian Analysis of the Embryo in the Congressional Debate over Federally Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research (1998-2001). Major Professor: Loel Kim, Ph.D.Debates about publicly funded science research have attracted the interest of various types of stakeholders who use different strategies to argue their positions. The more scientists use human biological material as their focus of study, the more nonscientists call for and participate in debate about such research. In this dissertation, I study the debate about embryonic stem cell research by analyzing transcripts from Congressional hearings held from 1998 …
The Speaking Christ: Gesture In Early Netherlandish Art, Allison Catherine Dilliard
The Speaking Christ: Gesture In Early Netherlandish Art, Allison Catherine Dilliard
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
ABSTRACT Dilliard, Allison Catherine. M.A. The University of Memphis. May 2010. The Speaking Christ: Gesture in Early Netherlandish Art. Major Professor: Todd Richardson, Ph.D. By the late medieval period, certain compositions and motifs became standard practice when representing Christ with Mary, such as his performing a gesture of blessing. In three fifteenth-century Netherlandish works, of which two are attributed to the Robert Campin Group and one to Rogier van der Weyden, a gesture that is not in keeping with the more traditional motifs is employed by Christ. In this thesis, based on an iconological and semiotic approach, I argue that …