Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Trad Lives Of Tiktok Wives: Rhetorical Strategies Of Mormon Wives On Tiktok, Makena L. Colson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Recently in the United States there have been debacles over gendered spaces in the home and workplace as debates spark over who a homemaker can be in a modernized society. TikTok, a short-form video social media app, is a way members of the younger generation communicate with one another over political and world events and discuss with one another in real time. The “tradwife” phenomenon on TikTok is examined here by using Walt Fischer’s Narrative Paradigm to show how what popular tradwife influencers’ words matter to a generation of adolescent girls and young mothers. Three popular influencers, Nara Smith, Hannah …

“Women Vs. Perfection:” A Pentadic Analysis Of Toxicity In Online Gaming, Niyayesh Arshadnia

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis utilizes a mixed-methods approach to examine an online video game player community as a case study to diagnose the underlying reason for widespread hostile behavior, especially towards women, among players in the online gaming sphere. The application of dramatism, a rhetorical theory that breaks down human behavior into elements of drama, reveals that the gaming industry and gaming culture are the likely perpetuators of this issue due to the environments they create and the behaviors they reward. This project is a diagnostic step towards rhetorically alleviating the exclusionary attitude of users in online gaming spaces through further research.

Post-Truth Gaming: Fictional Pasts And Constitutive Rhetoric In Video Game Nostalgia, Hunter Bishop

All NMU Master's Theses

What happens when we become nostalgic for experiences we never had? How do video game companies impact what we are nostalgic for? What might a fictional nostalgia look like, and how can it help us better understand the role of nostalgia in Western culture? These are the central questions that this thesis seeks to answer. As seen in the United States’ current cultural and political infatuation with the past, nostalgia has become a dominant rhetorical strategy. Nostalgia is especially prevalent in the medium of video games, where a steady stream of remakes, remasters, and rereleases attempts to repurpose the past …

2026 The Lindenwood Gateway Reader, Lindenwood University

The Lindenwood Gateway Reader - Full Issues

No abstract provided.

From Witness To Weapon: How Elizabeth Barrett Browning’S “The Cry Of The Children” Embodies And Transforms The Rhetorical Situation, Elyssa Vianey Solis

Theses and Dissertations

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Cry of the Children” employs trauma-driven rhetoric to expose Victorian child labor exploitation.

Combining literary analysis with rhetorical theory, this research contextualizes the poem within 19th-century industrial exploitation, showing how Browning transforms documentary evidence like the 1842 Children’s Employment Commission Report into emotional testimony. Visceral imagery, ironic juxtaposition, and embodied suffering weaponize pathos to reveal systemic abuse and moral urgency. Applying Lloyd Bitzer’s and Richard Vatz’s theories, we can posit that Browning both responds to and defines the crisis, merging poetic protest with social reform as civic intervention.

By engaging Bitzer and Vatz, this paper argues …

“Daría Mi Vida Por Ti”: On The Rhetoric Of Sacrifice Through The Lens Of Motherhood From The Border, America Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will discuss the implications of sacrifice as an ideology inflicted upon Chicana mothers. It will center on answering the following inquiry: why should a Chicana/Mexican mother sacrifice? This question addresses the role of sacrifice by discussing aspects of Chicana/Chicanx feminist rhetoric and Catholicism that influence the perception of motherhood as sacrifice and martyr. I construct and employ the rhetorical concept of MA↔MÁ to articulate the relationship between la maternidad y el martirio as attributed to mothers from the borderlands. This concept examines whether this affliction is bestowed by dominant and marginalizing narratives or self-imposed through divine merits. I …

A Testimoniando On Tutoring Practices In A Predominantly Latine Writing Center: How Drawing From Tutors’ Memories Fosters Reflective Practices, Emily Michelle Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

The student body of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) consists primarily of Latine students, a population that is reflected in the Writing Center’s tutor demographics. Tutor practices connect to the training sessions that are based on disciplinary expectations but also incorporate each tutor’s epistemology, cultural beliefs, and lived knowledge experiences. To reflect on the practices, memories, and experiences that tutors collected at the Writing Center, the concepts of testimoniando and testimonios will serve as the praxis and means of sharing the experiences and lived knowledge of tutors who identify as part of a marginalized group; this allow …

Against Despair: Hope As Rhetorical Practice In Chicana Theatre, Esperanza Arreola

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis argues that Chicana theatre functions as survival pedagogy—a rhetorical practice that teaches communities to name structural violence, transform bodily trauma into collective power, and rehearse liberation as a precondition for enacting it. Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s concept of literature as “equipment for living,” Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, and Cynthia M. Sheard’s reconceptualization of epideictic rhetoric as community formation, I analyze three plays that exemplify this pedagogy: Cherríe Moraga’s Heroes and Saints (1992) and The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea (2001), and Josefina López’s Real Women Have Curves (1990).

These works address distinct but interlocking forms of …

Encounters Of Third Space: A Case Study On Salvadoran Political Art And Identity Interplay, Breanna Delgado

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Third space is an in-between thought space designated for marginalized collectives, allowing multiple recontextualizations of identity interplay. However, Third Space is colonized due to western ideological influences such as criminalization of political art, stunting collective growth. This project serves to question and challenge Salvadoran political art and collective identities through questions such as why political art? Can political art be considered “safe spaces”? and dissecting the process of political art, third space meaning making, and identity interplay. Preserving the collective’s political art serves as a grassroots method of justice, accountability, and collective reparation.

I applying three conceptual frameworks: Bhabha’s (1994) …

Centering Access: Reimagining Basic Writing Through Critical Disability Frameworks, Jason Burton Mccormick

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Despite decades of scholarship arguing otherwise, developmental writing spaces are still often treated as places of deficit in higher education. This deficit positioning emerges in the ways the courses are discussed (as barriers and burdens to graduation), the way learners are imagined (being “unprepared” for college work), and the way placement is understood as punishment. Developmental educators continue to fight this stigma, but rely on stories of students “overcoming” rather than acknowledging that the stigma is a product of the institution and its discriminatory norms, not the offering itself.

My work reimagines the developmental writing classroom as an essential liminal …

Nature’S Sovereign: Environmental Archetypes In Isaiah’S Kingship Polemic, Christopher Ryan Sandel

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation examines how Isaiah employs environmental archetypes to advance a comprehensive kingship polemic that asserts Yahweh’s unrivaled sovereignty over all creation. The study addresses a gap in scholarship by offering the first systematic analysis of Isaiah’s environmental imagery within a unified rhetorical and theological framework. Drawing on historical, literary, and comparative ancient Near Eastern backgrounds, the study argues that Isaiah’s civilizational, cosmic, and terrestrial archetypes function as strategic instruments that dismantle rival claims to power and reorient the audience toward covenantal fidelity. Civilizational archetypes reveal the fragility of human empires and the futility of political trust. Entities such as …

Review: Misrecognitions: Plotting Capital In The Victorian Novel By Ben Parker, Suvij Sudershan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Review: The Poetics Of Science: Marx’S Literary Style By Ludovico Silva, Thomas A. Laughlin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Review: The Persistence Of Realism In Modernist Fiction By Paul Stasi, Chris Gortmaker

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Cultural Negotiations In Revisionist Mythmaking: Comparative Reading Of Bahram Beyzaei And Mary Zimmerman, Sepehr Karimi Mr., Bahee Hadaegh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

 Although more than fifty years have passed since feminist scholars pioneered revisionist mythmaking, drama remains underexplored in this field despite its unique potential for cultural and social reinterpretation. This study offers a comparative analysis of revisionist mythmaking in Iranian and American drama, specifically examining Bahram Beyzaei’s play, One Thousand and First Night alongside Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses as examples. This research aims to establish general principles for revisionist mythmaking within drama, spotlighting the complexities that emerge in transnational contexts. It explores how Beyzaei and Zimmerman negotiate cultural narratives and try to reshape traditional stories and reflect contemporary issues, emphasizing gender dynamics …

Between Revolutions: The Leftist Reception Of American Literature In Iran (1905-1979), Behnam Mirzababazadeh Fomeshi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper examines the reception of American literature in Iran during the period between the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Divided into four distinct phases (1905–1922, 1922–1941, 1941–1953, and 1953–1979), this study explores how political and ideological dynamics shaped the interpretation and translation of American literary works. Central to this reception was its inherently political nature, driven by the dominance of leftist ideologies within Iran’s intellectual landscape. The influence of the Tūdih Party and other leftist movements profoundly impacted the ways American literature, particularly the works of Walt Whitman, was translated, interpreted, and disseminated. By …

Christian Motifs In Forough Farrokhzad’S Works: A Comparison With T.S. Eliot’S Poetry, Mona Monsefi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Forough Farrokhzad’s (1934–1967) film The House is Black (1962) is a visual poem set in a leprosarium in Iran. Farrokhzad was a prominent modernist poet who merged poetry with contemporary art forms, primarily cinema. In this film, she employed a camera to express her poetic vision, highlighting her signature style that prioritizes unique imagery. This emphasis on visual and literary images is often intertwined with themes such as religion. Notably, Farrokhzad recomposed verses from the Old Testament, infusing them with her poetic language to enrich the film’s narrative. This article explores her unique, Western-influenced interpretation of Christian motifs in …

Vision And “Sur-Vision”: Intermediality And Alterity In The Frames Of Abbas Kiarostami, Marjan Mohammadi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Abbas Kiarostami’s cinema, often compared to Italian neorealism, oscillates between documentation and fiction. Kiarostami’s worlds, replete with a complex network of incomplete and self-reflexive frames, create a new site for perception, reflection, and intervention. This paper studies the intermedial aspect of Kiarostami’s cinema in “The Koker Trilogy” (1987; 1992; 1994), Close-Up (1990), and “Taste of Cherry” (1997). It explores how these moving images are shaped by the specific context of Iranian cinema and how they turn to reshape it. First, it examines Kiarostami’s framing techniques, which expand Iranian cinema and its engagement with Western visual conventions. …

Memory And Identity: A Comparative Analysis Of “Iranian Cultural Identity” In Asghar Farhadi’S Adaptation Of Arthur Miller’S Death Of A Salesman, Raed Faridzadeh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Recent cultural studies examine the intersection of cultural identity and memory, often viewing culture as a symbolic sign system or "culture as text." Jan Assmann defines "cultural memory" as essential to shaping societal identity. Literature and film contribute to this process by transmitting and evolving cultural meanings, not only reflecting but also constructing knowledge and reality. Iranian cinema has become a powerful medium of cultural expression, particularly post-revolution. Filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami, Sohrab Shahid Sales, Dariush Mehrjui, and Asghar Farhadi explore the dynamic relationship between literature and film in shaping cultural memory. This article analyzes Asghar Farhadi’s adaptation of Death …

Willy Loman’S Desperate Affair Challenges The Iranian Censorship: Asghar Farhadi’S The Salesman, Adineh Khojastehpour

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This study examines resistance in cross-cultural adaptations, focusing on Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman (2016), an adaptation of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). This research investigates how Farhadi's rewriting of Miller's play within post-revolutionary Iran engages in a dialogue with the Islamic Republic and its dominant discourses. It explores how this adaptation addresses Iran's social, cultural, and ideological complexities by reframing Miller's narrative of 1950s societal change and the failure of the American Dream within the context of post-revolutionary Iran. This analysis uses Bakhtin's concept of the chronotope to reveal how The Salesman uses Miller's unique concept of a …