Digital Commons Network^™

Rhetoric In Teaching And E-Learning In University Education, Santiago López Navia

Revista Española de Pedagogía

No abstract provided.

Force Displacement, Forced Perspective: The Rhetorics Of Refugee Experience, Jonathan Burgess

All Dissertations

This dissertation interrogates the intersection of digital media, displacement, and human rights within the contemporary geopolitical landscape, with a specific focus on the MENA region. From a perspective firmly rooted rhetoric, it dissects the complex relationship between technology and displaced populations, emphasizing the role of transmedia storytelling in shaping refugee experiences and narratives and the potential for transmedia storytelling to facilitate greater insights into needs and gaps for displaced people. Central to the analysis is the paradox of digital tools both as emancipatory devices and tools of surveillance and control, which are further elucidated through case studies.

Engaging with thinkers …

Trash, Fragments, And Breaking Things: Toward A Grotesque Cripistemology For Disabled Life Writing, Michelle Anne Lloyd

All Dissertations

Despite the boom of memoirs of mental health post-1997 and the first advertisements for Prozac, most of them follow the same formula and come from the same places of privilege. This privilege is evident in the author bios on the books themselves and the careers of the writers. The popularity of these books within both abled and disabled realms has therefore created a script that those with mental illnesses are expected to abide by. Following in the example of Margaret Price, Katie Rose Guest Pryal, Merri Lisa Johnson, and others, I resituate mental illness as mental disability and place it …

Goostly Coumforte In God: The Rhetoric Of Mysticism In The Cloud Of Unknowing, Clinton M. Sensat

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I analyze the rhetoric of the Cloud of Unknowing by an anonymous fourteenth-century English Catholic mystic. First, I situate the Cloud in its tradition, both spiritual and rhetorical. Then, after analyzing the linguistic arts employed, I engage in a sustained examination of the Cloud’s rhetorical technique. Ultimately, I conclude that the author of the Cloud succeeds in his rhetorical goals, even if some of his strategies are less successful than he perhaps believes, and that he does so through the use of concrete language and an appeal to the ethos of Christian monastic friendship.

“Neither Orthodox Nor Enlightened:” Dorothy Sayers And Classical Education In America, Jessica Richardi

New England Classical Journal

In 1947, accomplished author and intellectual Dorothy Leigh Sayers shared her unorthodox views on education with an audience at Oxford University. The concerns she expressed about the failings of modern schooling and her proposed remedy would catalyze the “classical education” movement in the United States decades later, a movement characterized by adherence to the medieval trivium as both a tool of learning and a model for child development. The transmission of Sayers’s ideas to America, variations in the classical learning movement, and Sayers’ continued influence are discussed.

Framing Effects, Rhetorical Devices, And High-Stakes Litigation: A Cautionary Tale, Marcus Moore

All Faculty Publications

Opposing lawyers frame the facts of a case to serve their client, craft leading questions, and exert pressure on the witness to go along with their desired answer. To counter this, counsel for the witness must anticipate this and prepare the witness to tacitly ask themselves before answering such questions: whether a frame is being employed?; and if so, they should respond in their own words, rather than in the terms put to them by the opposing lawyer. Courts might counsel themselves to employ similar caution when incorporating discussion taken from politics or related policy debate. They may not be …

Challenging Dominant Ideologies In Order To Center Marginalized Voices And Enrich Learning: Theorizing Social Justice In English Studies Teaching, Heather Holliger

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio explores the reproduction of and challenges to dominant ideologies in popular culture and scholarly contexts and examines pedagogies for advancing social justice in the field of English studies through three distinct but interconnected projects. The first project considers pedagogy in the public sphere, examining the power of the meme genre to serve as “critical public pedagogy” within movements for social change. The second project focuses on the role of dominant norms in reproducing social injustices through classroom writing assessment, offering insights from antiracist, queer, feminist, decolonial, translingual, and disability justice scholars. The paper also reviews composition scholars’ strategies …

Recruitment Rhetoric Of Metro Atlanta-Based Corporations, Cameron Moore

English Theses

This thesis, paired with the website “Recruitment Rhetoric” https://cmoore1240.wixsite.com/recruitment-rhetoric, seeks to analyze the ways in which selected metro Atlanta-based corporations utilize and construct recruitment rhetoric based on three theories: the rhetorical situation, mythos, and cultish. From this analysis, this paper then constructs a pedagogical strategy to teach recruitment rhetoric in freshman composition courses at Georgia State University to help undergraduate students develop a rhetorical literacy around corporate recruitment as they enter the workforce. Ultimately, this project aims to start a necessary conversation in the field that develops and interrogates recruitment rhetoric literacy practices.

Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller

Communication ETDs

Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …

Public Mediations Of Accountability In The #Metoo Era, Amanda Brand

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Tarana Burke initially launched the Me Too movement to cultivate solidarity among sexual assault survivors in 2006, and public appropriations of this effort have resulted in a kairotic moment of accountability in sexual assault cases. Particularly, the 2017 hashtag, #MeToo populates media platforms as the public invokes it to make sense of sexual assault cases, bearing witness to victim-survivors, assigning blame, or disavowing culpability. Challenging legacies of public denial, #MeToo marks a cultural shift in which victim-survivors are not only speaking out, they are also being heard and believed. I argue that accountability is rhetorically-constructed, negotiated, and imposed through …

The Warning Passages In Hebrews: Exhortations Written Using Deliberative Rhetoric To A Community Of Faith, Edgardo Rafael Báez

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Different interpretative approaches (historical-cultural, social-scientific, intertextual, oral-critical, rhetorical) and methodologies are applied when the so-called warning passages in the book of Hebrews get interpreted. Inevitably, these different interpretative methodologies have created different perspectives or views that the original author may not have intended and that the audience may not have gathered. The author of Hebrews was seeking to help the audience of his writings understand a new position through his extensive use of the Greek word κρείττων (kreittōn). Similarly, a Greek background is also evident because of the tremendous use of classical rhetoric within the Epistle. In addition, it is …

The "Othering" Of America: How The Strategic Use Of Crisis And Ressentiment Succeeded In The Trump Era, Laura J. Franklin

Dissertations

The establishment of a crisis theme through public rhetoric often triggers widespread attention, resulting in public concern and media coverage of an issue that could potentially be overblown or deceptive. In right-wing political discourse, this crisis warning is typically delivered by a White male leader with ready access to the powerful news media. An “us versus them” theme often occurs. Within this mode of a hegemonic exclusion, a culture of immigrants or an American minority are often depicted, perhaps aggressively, as a threat: A threat used to motivate, enrage and create the frustrations inherent in ressentiment. This dissertation explores the …

Communicating Indirect Feelings: American Stories Of Indirect Experiences, Susan Hess Lawson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The words people use to describe indirect human experiences and how narratives play a role are examined within qualitative research. The problem is that some people have difficulty communicating indirect experiences, and few studies have examined the issue. The purpose of this qualitative narrative research study was to examine how people who encountered indirect communication in their lived experiences can communicate the indirect experiences and messages they received. The theory guiding this study is the indirect communication theory as it relates to Communicating Indirect Feelings (CIF). The definition of CIF is how people attempt to communicate indirect feelings for shared …

Dead Men Tell No Tales: How The British Empire Destroyed Pirates With Monstrous Legal Rhetoric, Ashley L. Nef

Theses and Dissertations

The state often enacts violence against marginalized groups by rendering them monstrous. The early eighteenth century saw early and stellar instances of this phenomenon in the way the British Empire pursued and executed pirates. These "golden age" pirates represented an extraordinary cross-section of marginalization politically, economically, socially, and otherwise, all of which threatened the political and social mores of Imperial Britain. In order to implement a policy and practice of pirate annihilation, British authorities constructed pirates as monstrous by racializing, dehumanizing, and emphasizing the supernatural quality of pirates. This study analyzes three eighteenth-century piracy trial transcripts--those of William Kidd, Stede …

Political Rhetoric And Civility: A Challenge To “The Legacy Of ‘Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness’”, Timothy P. O'Brien, Melissa O. Stewart

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

“As you stand for your values do so with gentleness and respect—that’s how we move our country forward.”

Mike Pence, 48^th Vice President of the United States of America (2017-2021)

Since the founding of the United States of America, political discourse has often taken an unpleasant and nasty tone. Partisan disagreement concerning public policy is normal and policy should be the subject of vigorous debate. Disagreement, bickering, and even fights on the floor of Congress, are not new phenomena. However, today there is a growing sense in the country that civility and intolerance are on the rise. This study …

Phronesis And Philosophical Hermeneutics In Rhetoric And Philosophy Of Communication Praxis: A Pastoral Implication, Nichodemus Okafor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overarching telos of this dissertation is walking the humanities into the marketplace. Its specific purpose is seeking how to enact the praxis of rhetoric and philosophy of communication. In keeping with Calvin Schrag’s “communicative praxis” and Ronald Arnett’s “responsive, learning rhetoric,” this research considers phronesis and philosophical hermeneutics as pragmatic tools of rhetoric and philosophy of communication praxis. It seeks the implication of rhetoric and philosophy of communication praxis in the pastoral field visualized as a marketplace, since the marketplace is not merely a place of capitalism, but a real world where people engage their concrete human condition/existence in …

Neil Postman's Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy Of Communication In The Age Of Technopoly, Ryan Mccullough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project walks the work of Neil Postman (1931-2003) into the philosophy of communication. Traditional conceptions of Neil Postman’s body of work position his ideas within the traditions of media ecology, general semantics, or, more broadly, as a form of media studies and criticism. In addition, others label Postman’s work, especially in Technopoly (1992), as pessimistic, deterministic, and/or imbibed with Luddite tendencies. This project articulates a different view and contends that Postman’s scholarship, in particular his articulation of the loving resistance fighter in the final chapter of Technopoly, is committed to resisting the nefarious forces embedded in both technology …

A Burkean Analysis Of Eighteenth, Nineteenth, And Twentieth Century Christian Hymns, Keely Hardeman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hymns are one of the most popular forms of Christian worship, dating back to biblical times. Throughout history, hymns have been a way for people from all backgrounds and beliefs to express themselves in song. Hymnists have based their hymns on scriptures from the Bible, but have also written their hymns based on inspiration from scripture or divine revelation as well as their own earthly experience. To this day, hymns are still very present in both traditional and contemporary places of Christian worship, suggesting they are continually influential to the masses. My analysis looks at how hymns inform Christians’ theological …

Analyzing The Rhetorics Of Wine: Ethnographic Research Of Wine Community Narratives, Bailey Mcalister

English Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore the effective communication and rhetorical practices of sommeliers and wine professionals. Using interdisciplinary work and ethnographic study, I analyze the general narrative of the wine community in order to draw conclusions about the rhetorics of wine. Specifically, I argue that professionals in the wine community utilize a unique expertise founded on managing relationships between the wines, the experiences, and the wine community, and that these rhetorics are crucial to the industry's success. To support my argument, I conducted personal interviews with seven wine professionals during the summer of 2022. These primary sources inform my rhetorical …

Technical Communication Inclusionary Interventions Into Academic Spaces, Sam Clem

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

While many efforts have been made to make higher education in the US more equitable, there are still academic spaces in which some knowledges and some knowledge makers are marginalized. In this dissertation, I identify three such spaces: technical editing, graduate instructor training, and online academic research in trans communities. When editors make revisions based solely in American Standard English, as most editing practices and teaching are currently based, they risk marginalizing non-heritage speakers of English and speakers of various dialects of English, like African American Vernacular English. I suggest that by shifting our focus of editing from grammar policing …

The Solidarity Manifesto: A New Network For Future Change, Sofia Calicchio

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Colonialism is a scheme of standpoint; colonizer versus colonized, West versus East, good versus bad. When put in the foreground, the value of what we see heavily relies on our perspective and knowledge. When learning to dissect, deconstruct, and decolonize spaces, we need to start utilizing decolonial thought as an historical tool rather than a true depiction of reality. Decolonizing spaces and recognizing Western colonization practices means challenging the normative structures in colonial history, thus breaking the cycle of oppression through building community and fostering solidarity. Drawing on theories exploring access to public spheres, representation, protection, permanence, cultural displacement and …

The Myth Of Perfection: Charting The Rhetoric Of Veteran Disability For A Course To Stability, Nicholas Rader

All Dissertations

This dissertation rhetorically analyzes discrimination in Western institutional discourses and documentation procedures, such as architectural texts and procedures, through a historiographic lens. An analytical methodology will be offered to show how discrimination of intersectional bodies is historically informed and reaffirmed by the manipulation of Western myths and mythos. Specifically, by mapping navigational mathematics and cartographic methods over rhetorical, architectural, and historiographic theory, it will be shown how the manipulation of Western myths establishes and reifies patriarchal discrimination that eventually fissions into eugenicist logics in nineteenth and twentieth century France, England, and the United States. In modernity, the practice of manipulating …

Final Report: Oer Textbook For Core A2 Courses, Cathy Gabor, Leigh Meredith

USF OER Faculty Grant

This report provides an overview of the project completed with OER grant funds received from USF’s Gleeson Library in 2021. Our OER project was to create a textbook that would reduce costs for students in USF’s current Core A2 classes, including RHET 120, 250, 295 and HONC 132. It was also intended to provide a “multimodal” (writing, speaking, digital) approach to composition to reflect best practices and pedagogical innovations in the teaching of composition and communication. This report will cover the specific plan for the OER, what was accomplished, what assessment efforts were undertaken, and areas for further development. Findings …

"You Call It Honor, We Call It Dishonor." Counterstorytelling & Confederate Monuments In Isle Of Wight County, Virginia, Brooke Covington, Chief Rosa Holmes Turner, Julianne Bieron

Community Literacy Journal

This essay considers how everyday citizens use counterstorytelling as a persuasive tactic in sites of ordinary democracy like public hearings. Specifically, we examine the counterstories and stock stories shared during a public hearing held in Isle of Wight County, Virginia to determine the future of a confederate monument that stood in front of the county's courthouse. By focusing closely on one particular counterstory, this essay considers counter storytelling as a form of racial countermemory that challenges dominant narratives by centralizing social justice and anti-racism. The authors aim to contribute to understandings of storytelling and its role within sites of participatory …

Writing For The Humanities And The Arts, Olivia Wood

Open Educational Resources

This is the syllabus, course calendar, and grading contract used for Olivia Wood's section of ENGL 210: Writing in the Humanities and the Arts at City College in Spring 2023. Students write opinion editorials in the first unit, research a genre of their choosing and create a "genre guide" to help others write in that genre during the second unit, and then complete a multimodal project in the third unit, perhaps using their own or a classmate's genre guide to assist them.

"Ok, Groomer" :(Post) Truth Rhetoric And Transphobia, Adit R. Selvaraj

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Paying attention to anti-LGBTQ rhetoric circulating on social media in Fall 2022, this thesis situates political rhetoric on Twitter, by analyzing the use of the hashtag #okgroomer. This hashtag, a corruption of the popular phrase “ok, boomer,” has been used to show contempt on social media by equating left-wing ideologies to pedophilia. Informed by gender critical theory, this work espouses the idea that #okgroomer is constructed as a post-truth ideal aided by the mythos that queer people are dangerous to children. To study #okgroomer, this thesis employs a critical technical discourse analysis informed by ecological scholarship to a case study …

بلاغة الأمل في قصيدة ”إرادة الحياة“ لأبي القاسم الشابّي (1909–1934), Shokri Al Mabkhout

All Works

‫يحلّل المقال قصيدة ”إرادة الحياة“ لأبي القاسم الشابّي انطلاقًا من فرضيّة مفادها أنّ دلالة الأمل في هذه القصيدة لا تُدرَك إلّا داخل العالم الشعريّ الذي بناه الشابّي في مدوّنته، وهو عالم لا تناقُض فيه بين ”بلاغة الأمل“ و”بلاغة اليأس،“ فلكلتا البلاغتين عمق خياليّ وفكريّ غير الظاهر منه في هذه القصيدة أو تلك. وللوصول إلى تحديد مآتي الأمل في شعر الشابّي، يقارب المقال عالمه الشعريّ داخل إطارين نظريّين: أوّلهما ما تقترحه علينا نظريّة الاستعارة التصوّريّة لدى لايكوف (Lakoff ) وجونسن (Johnson)، ومن سار على نهجهما، من طرقٍ في بنْيَنَة النسيج اللغويّ-الاستعاريّ-التصوّريّ للأمل في القصيدة؛ وثانيهما ما نجده في نظريّة جلبار دوران …

Norms Of Public Argumentation And The Ideals Of Correctness And Participation, Frank Zenker, Jan Albert Van Laar, Bianca Cepollaro, Anca Gâță, Martin Hinton, Colin Guthrie King, Brian N. Larson, Marcin Lewinski, Christoph Lumer, Steve Oswald, Maciej Pichlak, Blake D. Scott, Mariusz Urbanski, Jean H.M. Wagemans

Faculty Scholarship

Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. …

Faking And Conspiring About Covid-19: A Discursive Approach, Rosa Scardigno, Alessia Paparella, Francesca D'Errico

The Qualitative Report

In the more general climate of post-truth - a social trend reflecting a disregard for reliable ways of knowing what is true, mostly acted through massive use of misinformation and rhetoric calling for emotions - an alarming “infodemic” accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting healthy attitudes and behaviors and further lessening trust in science, institutions, and traditional media. Its two main representative items, fake and conspiracy news, have been widely analyzed in psycho-social research, even if scholars mostly acknowledged the cognitive and social dimensions of those items and devoted less attention to their discursive construction. In addition, these works did not …

Master's Portfolio, Taylor Ball

Master of Rhetoric and Composition

Contents include reflective introduction, teaching philosophy, sample of scholarly writing, and sample teaching materials (syllabus, assignment, and lesson plan).