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Portland State University

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Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Emoji, Emoji, What For Art Thou?, Lisa Lebduska Oct 2015

Emoji, Emoji, What For Art Thou?, Lisa Lebduska

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This essay provides a history and context for emoji as a way of re-materializing composing while simultaneously arguing that emoji do not threaten alphabetic literacy and instead provide a means of creative graphic expression. The essay acknowledges that n some instances emoji do help to clarify the intent or tone of alphabetic writing, but it notes that emoji, like alphabetic writing, is culturally and contextually bound. Emoji expand expression and doing so open themselves to re-appropriation, intepretation and even misinterpretation, along with the affirming possibilities of artistic creation.


Encomium On The Overlord, Kt Torrey Oct 2015

Encomium On The Overlord, Kt Torrey

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

As a new fan of the CW's paranormal series, Supernatural, I paid little attention to actor Misha Collins outside the omnipresent trenchcoat of his character, Castiel until a kairotic question from a fellow conference panelist pointed me in the direction of Collins' Twitter feed. I was struck by Collins' 140-character shots of performative trolling, Tweets that sang to me in shades, gleeful rhetorical waves, of the sophists, particularly because of the actor's interest in, and unique definition of, social change. Building on that sophistic seed, I argue here that Collins' construction of a megalomaniacal Twitter persona known as the Overlord …


The 5-Sided Lego, Hanna Barker, Shawn Beaumont Oct 2013

The 5-Sided Lego, Hanna Barker, Shawn Beaumont

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

The study of rhetoric usually concerns itself with analysis of discourse more clearly identifiable as a text, but often overlooked is how apparently non-textual elements may shape our own personal narratives. However, rhetorical theory can indeed be applied to something like LEGO, that beyond marketing and branding, most people do not immediately consider textual. Ultimately by using the Burkeian pentad as a terministic screen, this project aims to determine how the act of playing with LEGO, and even the LEGO brick itself, serve to construct realities, and how those realities impact our own.


Scully And Me: Or, The X-Files, Revisited, Rita Malenczyk Oct 2012

Scully And Me: Or, The X-Files, Revisited, Rita Malenczyk

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This essay reflects on the longevity of The X-Files phenomenon through the lens, primarily, of gender. The common interpretation of the two agents' roles as reversing traditional male/female stereotypes--Scully, the female, is rational, while the male Mulder is imaginative--has never seemed particularly right to me, especially when one throws Scully's Catholicism into the mix. Rather, it seems that, throughout the series, two belief systems come into conflict; while Mulder's appears privileged because of his gender, the show subtly critiques that privilege through its portrayal of Scully's Catholicism.(I suppose this essay is, in a way, an attempt to figure out what's …


Super Hardcore Subversion, Rob Pickering Apr 2012

Super Hardcore Subversion, Rob Pickering

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Geneviéve Goulet is virtually unknown, but her alter ego, LuFisto "the Super Hardcore Anime," is renowned to professional wrestling fans in Canada, Japan, and Mexico as a competitor who will face all challengers, regardless of gender. This resolve, along with her agency over how her image is distributed to the public, creates Goulet as a positive female role-model in the hegemonics of her chosen industry. I am a fat, twice-divorced male born and living in the American Midwest, so of course I'm a wrestling fan, but in spite of that, there is room in approaching wrestling for intellectual and feminist …


Of Peerenting, Trophy Wives, And Effeminate Men: Modern Family's Surprisingly Conservative Remediation Of The Family Sitcom Genre, Christina M. Lavecchia Apr 2011

Of Peerenting, Trophy Wives, And Effeminate Men: Modern Family's Surprisingly Conservative Remediation Of The Family Sitcom Genre, Christina M. Lavecchia

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Just because the family is modern doesn't mean the family is new.


Up In The Air: The Case Against Happy Endings, Michelle Yvonne Burke Oct 2010

Up In The Air: The Case Against Happy Endings, Michelle Yvonne Burke

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

In real life, not all romances are comedies. And occasionally, filmmakers get that.