Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

From Self-Help To Self-Harm: Rhetoric In The Self-Help Industry, Grace S. Royle

Non-Thesis Student Work

Over the past several years, the self-help industry has become increasingly more successful and sought out; especially in the United States, whose modern society celebrates individualism and self-improvement. However, within this new and unregulated field lie several unknowns and invisible dangers. Multiple instances involving popular and beloved gurus have ended in tragedy, twisting cases of self-help into self-harm. This paper chases after just how this is possible and discovers that weaponized communication is largely to blame.

From Self-Help to Self-Harm: Rhetoric in the Self-Help Industry discusses the cases of James Arthur Ray, Keith Raniere, and Isaac Hershkopf to uncover how …

Purposefully Forgetting: Surveying San Diego’S Founding Narrative During The City’S Bicentennial Celebrations Of 1969, Noah Pallmeyer

Keck Undergraduate Humanities Research Fellows

The city of San Diego owes much its success and prosperity to the “victories associated with colonization.” This quote comes directly from the current National Park Service description of the San Diego Presidio. This project turns to the 1969 bicentennial celebrations of San Diego’s founding. This was a rhetorically powerful period in San Diego’s historical remembrance. This project argues that native and other marginalized populations were not properly considered in the narrative of San Diego’s founding during these celebrations. To understand why and how these populations failed to be properly considered, this project turns to the narratives of colonial monuments …

Rhetoric And Race - Background And Assignment - Shu Mlk Symposium 2020, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

Provides an overview of Rhetoric and describes the historical development of Race as a rhetorical construct. Offers two associated assignment options: a digital audio interview plus video debrief on contemporary racism, and/or an essay on 21st century abolitionist rhetoric. - Jon Radwan and Angela Kariotis

Ua12/2/28 Forensics Team, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about the forensics / debate team.

Challenging Calls For Civility, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In conjunction with her article "When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value and What We Do Not," Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt writes about civility codes and free speech for Academe Blog.

The Phenomenon Of Rome: On Roads, Refugees, And Teilhard De Chardin, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

Teilhard de Chardin’s understanding of creation as an evolutionary process is used as a lens for studying Roman roads and refugees.A shorter version of this essay was published in Seton Hall University 2018 Core Trip, pages 28-33. This draft has been submitted for potential publication in Writing Rome: A Spiritual Journey, Kelly Shea ed.

When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value And What We Do Not, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In this essay, I argue that the debate on free speech as pushed by the conservative right is a strategic apparatus to undermine the various diversity initiatives on college and university campuses. While supporters of the right wing extremists around the globe have pushed for various modes of exclusions (social, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual), here in the United States, such exclusions are most evident in the collapse of academic freedom and the rise of civility codes as students and educators use the platform of free speech to promote various forms of injustices and exclusions. Our neoliberal college and …

Ua37/42 Faculty Personal Papers Nina Hammer, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Personal papers of Nina Hammer, Bowling Green Business University Registrar 1938-1963; WKU Registrar 1963-1969.

Toward A Theology Of Transformation, Hannah Kathleen Griggs

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

Black liberation theologians come to terms with white supremacy by collectively remembering the story of the Exodus and Jesus' crucifixion--affirming God's preference for freedom and in-the-world salvation. The particular history of white American Christianity requires a different story to provide the foundation for our social memory. As white American Christians, we have certain blind spots—blind spots created by historical and social privileges that have given white people unequal access to power and resources. The story of Zacchaeus has the potential to help reframe white Christianity’s conception of race relations in the United States, shifting from a reconciliation paradigm to a …

Criticism On The Map, Timothy Barney

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

On the evening of November 9, 1989, thousands stormed the entry points of the wall marking the historic split between West Berlin and East Berlin, the archetypal symbol of the bipolar Cold War. Meanwhile, President George H.W. Bush sat with Secretary of State James Baker, fielding questions from reporters in the Oval Office. On his desk, a binder of briefing information was opened to a standard State Department map of Cold War Germany. Throughout the hastily arranged press conference, the president often gestured toward the map, even tapping on it to emphasize his points about a "whole and free Europe" …

A More Perfect European Union?: The Transnational Networks Of The European Union’S Embassy Open House In Washington, D.C., Timothy Barney

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Annually, the Delegation of the European Union (EU) in Washington, D.C., holds an embassy open house day for its 27 member nations to celebrate European culture and educate tourists on the functions of EU politics and international relations. Amidst an ongoing debt crisis and a continuing exploration of its identity as a supranational entity, “Embassy Day” affords an opportunity to see the EU as a spatial network uneasily caught in the tensions between the often nostalgic nationalism of its constituent countries and the future-oriented technocratic transnationalism of its composite alliance. By analyzing the cultural artifacts of Embassy Day from its …

Living Proof: Autobiographical Political Argument In We Are The 99 Percent And We Are The 53 Percent, Doron Taussig

Media and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

People often cite life experiences as evidence in political arguments, though personal experience is far from generalizable. How do these arguments work? In this paper, I consider the rhetorical dynamics of “autobiographical political argument” by examining We are the 99 Percent and We are the 53 Percent, two blogs that use autobiographical stories to make discursive points. I argue that these autobiographical appeals efficiently use all three of Aristotle’s persuasive “proofs”—logos (logic), ethos (credibility), and pathos (emotion). Then I show that many of the blogs’ stories focus on “redemption,” a theme personality psychologists have found emphasized in the narrative …

Of Frogs & Rhetoric: The Atrazine Wars, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In a scientific dispute over the effects of atrazine on amphibians, chemical industry–funded and publically funded scientists present stunningly contrasting constructions of atrazine's environmental concentrations, persistence, and potential to harm. Considerable scientific uncertainties and variable ranges allow authors to construct preferred versions of the story of atrazine. These incommensurate rhetorical constructions, more the result of competing economic and environmental interests than of any paradigmatic misalignments, have prolonged the dispute not only over atrazine's effects but also over whether its sales should be banned.

Idealism And Pragmatism In The Rhetoric Of John Boehner: A Weaverian Analysis Of Congressional Discourse, Cody Hawley

Masters Theses

American political rhetoric is characterized by a synthesis of contradictory idealistic and pragmatic elements, both of which are necessary if there is to be convincing persuasion. The way in which politicians rhetorically approach this dichotomy is significant, however, current studies on the topic are limited to presidential discourse. There is little research on this topic in other settings such the United States House of Representatives. This criticism analyzes John Boehner's congressional rhetoric in the idealistic-pragmatic dichotomy. The critical method utilized is Richard Weaver's four forms of argument-genus, similitude, consequence, and circumstance. Eight speeches of John Boehner, four from his position …

Moore Of Feminine Style: A Rhetorical Examination Of "Wednesdays With Beth", Terrie Meeks

Masters Theses

Beth Moore is a best-selling author of books and Bible studies, a speaker to crowds that fill places like the Georgia Super Dome, as well as an international speaker, a radio and television personality, and she is achieving this milestone as a woman, in a world lit with male stars. Through all of these venues it is estimated that Moore speaks to hundreds of thousands of people each year. One of Moore's most recent ventures is speaking on Life Today with James and Betty Robison. Each week features an episode of "Wednesdays with Beth." Using Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's theory of …

Discourse And Conflict: The President Barack H. Obama Birth Certificate Controversy And The New Media, Timothy Lee Adams

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A creative exploration of the consequences of public speech in the era of freely accessible, social media, as the author, a former elections official, records and explores the consequences of public dissent in the case of President Barack Obama’s eligibility controversy. This non-fiction narrative culminates with the author’s analysis and observations on both his personal experiences and the state of public speech and political power in contemporary America.

Visual Rhetoric And The Promotion Of Scientific Ideas: The Strange Case Of The Prion, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In the field that investigates infectious brain diseases such as mad cow disease, the verbal and visual packaging of scientific visuals associated with identifying the agent, prion, its processes, and structure served the community ritual of establishing belief in a highly unorthodox phenomenon. Visual promotion fed into cultural expectations of single agents and simple processes, even though the actual agency and disease process have proven highly complex and perhaps unknowable.

Ua3/8/8 President's Office-Meredith Speech File, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Speeches written and delivered by Thomas Meredith.

Ua3/1/4 President's Office-Cherry Speeches & Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Addresses, chapel talks, notes and educational and political speeches written and delivered by Henry Hardin Cherry and others typed on loose leaf pages. There are also quotations, reports, wills, correspondence and a political cartoon. Many items have no attribution as to author or source. Other authors include A.C. Burton, A.W. Mell, Mattie McLean and J.S. Dickey. Some items are repeated throughout the series and others have been edited. Volume 5 has been digitized for use by researchers.

Accounts Of Violence From Arabs And Israelis On Abc-Tv’S Panel Discussion From Jerusalem, Richard Buttny, Donald G. Ellis

Communication and Rhetorical Studies - All Scholarship

The North American network, ABC-Television, broadcast the news-panel program, Nightline, from Jerusalem during the beginning days of the Second Intifada. One of the main themes of this discussion was the violence, pain, and trauma—the civilians killed or wounded, the military’s actions, and how it all started. Even the horrible facts of violence must be told or narrated and discussed for its morality, causes, consequences, responsibility, and political ramifications. In this sense, violence is discursive. How violence gets told, how versions get constructed or contested is our focus. Participants used the communicative practices of invoking membership categories and activity terms and …

"I Knew There Was Something Wrong With That Paper": Scientific Rhetorical Styles And Scientific Misunderstandings, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This selection unpacks scientific prose and claim substantiation for Nobel Prize winner, Stan Prusiner, in the transmissible spongiform encephlopathies field (i.e., mad cow disease). Applying linguistic strategies such as M. A. K. Halliday's "favorite clause type," the author examines argumentative strategies in dense scientific prose both in bold and cautious rhetorical styles and invented lexical changes in new scientific development.

An Orthodox Heresy: Scientific Rhetoric And The Science Of Prions., Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A significant theoretical shift in the research community examining a class of terminal, infectious neurological disorders that includes Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and Kuru was assisted by rhetorical production. The local rhetoric of one laboratory, that of Professor Stanley B. Prusiner, involved first situating an heretical hypothesis within the framework of the orthodox narrative and then audaciously promoting that heresy. Another aspect of rhetorical production in this case involved situating a new language associated with the heretical hypothesis. To promote their new lexicon, the Prusiner team evoked orthodox values of consistency, efficiency, and collective ratification. Eventually, what was once …

Rhetoric And The Aids Virus Hunt, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

By comparing the papers produced by the laboratory teams of Robert Gallo and Jean Luc Montagnier during the AIDS virus hunt, we have an opportunity to discern the fine line between a bold, explicit rhetoric that may convince as well as offend and a bald, reserved rhetoric that may actually conceal important implications. Going too far in either direction may create misunderstandings and ethical dilemmas as will be demonstrated in a textual analysis deepened by an exploration of historical context and interviews with key participants. Since a public health crisis calls upon communication that thwarts misunderstandings, scientists should understand the …

Owning A Virus: The Rhetoric Of Scientific Discovery Accounts, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No Abstract Available

Establishing The Phenomenon: The Rhetoric Of Early Research Reports On Aids, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In the first three medical reports on AIDS which were published in 1981 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the writers' primary rhetorical agenda was to argue that a new medical discovery had been made. A secondary agenda was to offer etiological explanations for the new problem. To establish the new disease entity as deserving serious attention, the writers built a sense of mystery by confronting established medical knowledge about immunodeficiency and emphasizing the inability of modern medicine to diagnose and treat the problem. When they explained the phenomenon in etiological terms, rather than confronting the disciplinary matrix, the …

Ua94/6/1 Correspondence, J. R. Newman

Student/Alumni Personal Papers

Letter to the College Heights Herald editor from J.R. Newman regarding the benefits of having been a member of the Congress Debating Club.

Ua99/6/1 Joint Debate Program, Coreco Debating Society, Big Four Debating Society

Student Organizations

Program for the sixth annual joint debate between the Big Four and Coreco debating societies. Gives question to be debated, names of debaters and lists of all members of both societies.