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2023

Rhetoric

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller Aug 2023

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 …

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"Don't Put Restrictions On Us": The Dangers Of Conservative And Populist Appeals For Abortion Access In Post-Roe America, Kayla Schmitz May 2023

"Don't Put Restrictions On Us": The Dangers Of Conservative And Populist Appeals For Abortion Access In Post-Roe America, Kayla Schmitz

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

This thesis critically analyzes Kansans for Constitutional Freedom’s campaign ads for their campaign against the Value Them Both Amendment in Kansas in 2022. Value Them Both would have stripped the Kansas constitution of its protection of personal autonomy and therefore abortion rights. Kansans for Constitutional Freedom used populist and otherwise conservative appeals in their ads to reach audiences across the political “spectrum” to gain their votes against Value Them Both. While the campaign was widely successful, there are many things it did not do for the broader concern of reproductive healthcare access in the United States, particularly for those living …

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Making The Political Personal: Consciousness Raising For The Contemporary Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, Danica Fuerst May 2023

Making The Political Personal: Consciousness Raising For The Contemporary Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, Danica Fuerst

Honors College Theses

Consciousness raising (CR) typically refers to the specific small group practice pioneered by second-wave feminists, but as networked media gradually replaced the small group process, new forms that are descended from the original CR emerged. This thesis traces consciousness raising from it's origins in the late 1960s and early '70s, through third-wave feminism, to contemporary feminist uses. It analyzes the rhetorical effects and functions of CR from the perspective of Symbolic Convergence theory, considering the various media through which CR is practiced. Finally, using the understanding of CR and its functions that this provides, it analyzes how one specific contemporary …

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The Solidarity Manifesto: A New Network For Future Change, Sofia Calicchio May 2023

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 …

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"Ok, Groomer" :(Post) Truth Rhetoric And Transphobia, Adit R. Selvaraj Mar 2023

"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 …

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Twitter As Limited Digital Rhetorical Forum – The Reproductive Rights Discourse Online, Jacob L. Longini Jan 2023

Twitter As Limited Digital Rhetorical Forum – The Reproductive Rights Discourse Online, Jacob L. Longini

Comparative Woman

Rhetorical discourse has long been characterized by patriarchal systems, and this reality has persisted in online spaces. How might today’s scholar dissect and better understand the nature of online communities, specifically those that engage in women’s rights discourses? I argue that using Thomas Farrell’s notion of “rhetorical forum”, James P. Zappen’s outline for digital rhetorical theory, and Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin’s feminist understanding of rhetorical practice, one can account for the current state of such discourses on Twitter. The patriarchal flaws that Foss and Griffin identify in traditional rhetoric can shed light on the negative aspects of …

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