Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Antagonism, Will Berrington, E.J. Graham

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Entry for special issue, 'Keywords for Value and Culture'

Age, Sam H. Samore

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Entry for special issue, 'Keywords for Value and Culture'

Abstraction, Samuel Fisher

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Entry for special issue, 'Keywords for Value and Culture'

Abolition, Seb B. Grossmann

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Entry for special issue, 'Keywords for Value and Culture'

Introduction: Reading Marx, Thomas Waller, Sean O'Brien

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Introduction for special issue, 'Keywords for Value and Culture'

Exploring Border Rhetoric, Resistance, And The American Dream: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' First House Address, Candice L. Ruh Phd, Cassandra Hightower

Feminist Pedagogy

Border rhetoric can be a “muddy” topic for undergraduates, as borders are often taught as fixed, factual lines that divide places and people. However, from a communication perspective, borders are fluid, symbolic, and socially constructed. This difference between viewing borders as physical dividers versus rhetorical constructs creates a valuable opportunity for students to think critically about how meaning is shaped by borders of land, language, and identity.             This original teaching activity uses Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ (D-NY) first House speech—the most-watched C-SPAN video within 12 hours of release (Gajanan, 2019)—as a central case. It invites students to analyze a key moment …

Jesus-Centered Preaching: A Christocentric Approach Based On The Hermeneutical Implications Of The Gospels As Βίοι., Mark Palmer

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover the implied hermeneutic of the Gospels as βίοι and to propose a congruent homiletic. The study addressed the following research questions: What is the genre of the Gospels and the resulting hermeneutic? Does current Christ-centered preaching account for his hermeneutic? Does Christological research account for intrinsic characteristics? What is the intrinsic Christology of Mark’s Gospel? What homiletical process is needed to align with the genre-based hermeneutic of the Gospels? The methodology of this study followed a four-step process: Genre research confirming the Gospels as βίοι, Christological research including the development of an …

Performance Of Illustrations And Images As Language In Sarnath Banerjee’S All Quiet In Vikaspuri, Akanksha Barthwal Ms

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Sarnath Banerjee’s All Quiet in Vikaspuri, fictionalizes but at the same time addresses water wars and political ideologies in the city of Delhi. By the means of eco-critical approach in the name of Vi-kas (development) Banerjee discuss the acts of slow violence subverted on nature in the name of progress (vikas). Through text/ images the author depicts chaos and challenges for the readers in more direct and obscene ways. The current paper attempts to look at Banerjee’s illustrations and images as new form of language emerged in modern Indian literature with the possibly that illustrations have more effect on …

How To Pay Attention To Detail, Gregory Crosby

Open Educational Resources

This assignment examines how writing cultivates attention by asking students to describe their commute to campus, first from memory and later through deliberate observation. By comparing the two accounts, students reflect on the selective nature of perception and how conscious attention alters what they notice and record. A final rewriting exercise inspired by Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style demonstrates how language, perspective, and form shape the interpretation of experience, reinforcing the connection between observation and craft.

Critical Geopolitics And The Reconstruction Of Meaning: A Discourse Analysis Of The 'Terrorism' Label Applied To Hamas By Western Hegemony, Cahaya Mulyani Sakti, M.Hamdan Basyar

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The emergence of Hamas in 1987 cannot be separated from the configuration of modern colonialism and the continuity of occupation that shaped the political reality. Hamas’s early phase was rooted in socio-religious activities through education and community empowerment programs, before evolving into armed resistance against the occupation. The labeling of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization began in the mid-1990s in U.S. legal documents, which subsequently generated debate and gave rise to counter-narratives. This study employs the frameworks of critical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail & Agnew) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak) to analyze the labeling of Hamas as “terrorist” by Western hegemony. …

Satire And Sentiment: Dickensian Characterization In Hard Times, Helen R. Ball

The Confluence

Readers of Charles Dickens both celebrate and criticize his characters, who are paramount among the quintessential aspects of his writing. His industrial novel Hard Times bears particularly the weight of such criticism in its portrayal of Stephen Blackpool, one of the Coketown factory Hands. Scholars have complained that Blackpool exemplifies, in too boring or didactic a manner, the typical virtues of the Victorian era, such as saintliness, humility, and long-suffering (Spector 365), and that his character lacks the necessary traits to compel and inspire readers.

Such a critique has prompted the following research and analysis. Using formalist observation of diction …

Multilingual Meaning Making In Zambian Social Media Discourse: Rhetorical Framing, Identity Construction, Persuasion And Digital Writing Practices On Facebook, Mwesah Mpundu Kapesa

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This study investigates how language choices in Zambian social media discourse construct identity, frame narratives, and influence audiences. Although major social media platforms are predominantly English and Eurocentric, Zambia is a highly multilingual society, creating tension between global linguistic norms and local language practices. Despite growing scholarship on digital discourse, limited research examines how Zambian users navigate multilingual communication online, particularly regarding identity construction, rhetorical framing, and audience engagement. Using a qualitative research design grounded in discourse analysis and informed by critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and sociolinguistic theory (Gee, 2014), the study collected two weeks of Facebook data. User‑generated …

Hands On: An Exploration Of Techne Via Everyday Embodied Practices, Molly Mcconnell

Dissertations - ALL

In the field of Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies (RCWS), techne has been a longstanding focus of the field, notably as it pertains to our understanding and practice of rhetoric and how we teach writing and rhetorical practices. Some scholars have focused on techne as it is taught in the writing classroom; others have focused on how rhetoric is understood and applied in the classics. My research builds on previous work by considering techne in connection to embodied practices. I argue that discussions of techne have thus far focused on individual learning, especially in relation to composition and rhetoric. In …

Akan Proverbs And Social Media Commentary: The Representation Of Women In Ghanaian Society, Richard Ayertey Lawer

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines how gender ideologies embedded in Akan proverbs are reproduced, negotiated, and contested within contemporary Ghanaian digital discourse. Drawing on feminist rhetorical analysis and digital discourse studies, the research analyzes a purposive sample of 25 Akan proverbs and 36 social media posts and comments from Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (2022–2025) focusing on women in public roles. The study demonstrates that Akan proverbs function as enduring ideological resources that construct women’s agency as conditional, subordinate, and morally regulated. These ideological patterns are recontextualized in digital spaces through both explicit citation and implicit proverbial reasoning, where users mobilize cultural logics …

The Curtains Aren’T Just Blue: The Decline Of Media Literacy Within Pop-Culture, Kaia Divisconti

Honors Theses

This paper explores the relationship between the growing belief that media like film, television and advertisements “aren’t that deep” and the decline of English departments within education. This study explores how pillars of English departments, like analysis and rhetorical awareness, are pivotal for students to learn to understand the vast number of digital media that they are faced with every day. Through pop-culture moments of American Eagle “good genes” advertisement campaign, media trends like “red pill” content and stereotypical representation in film, this paper examines how this content is pushed onto students and how departments like English and humanities can …

Rhettech Journal Volume 8

RhetTech

No abstract provided.

Practicing A Pedagogy Of Slow Resistance In The Writing Classroom, Kathleen Rose Dillon

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

Especially during and following the ‘lockdown era’ of the COVID-19 pandemic, college writing instructors have sought ways to mitigate the harms of neoliberal and capitalist practices in the academy and writing classroom. Incorporating elements of Slow Pedagogy, Disability Studies, Anti-Capitalist Composition, and Participatory Action Research methodology, this dissertation argues for practicing a Pedagogy of Slow Resistance, centering co-creation and relationship-building, to resist neoliberal and capitalist values, and promote student belonging and well-being. This dissertation highlights a classroom study in which two undergraduate students in the TRIO program, which serves students who are first in their family to go to college, …

Julie And Julia 2.0 Emergent Themes Of “One Year” Food Blogging Challenge, Anna Hollrah

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This study analyzed the thematic patterns that emerge in year-end posts by food bloggers who undertook a one-year blogging challenge. Using rhetorical criticism and an open coding process, 25 reflective blog posts were analyzed to identify recurring themes and motivations from the legacies of Julia Child and Julie Powell. The analysis identified seven primary themes, which were then grouped into two categories: advice and response. The themes included authenticity, inspiration, hard work, learning, enjoyment, gratitude, and community building.

Several of these themes reflected the influence and advice of Child and Powell, and they also highlighted the blogger’s personal growth, creativity, …

Propasafe-Hybrid: A Text-Based Hybrid Propaganda Detection Tool (Ila 2026 Presentation), Thomas Kimmeth, Avijit Roy, Vivek Sharma

Publications and Research

This presentation introduces Propasafe-Hybrid, a hybrid system for sentence-level propaganda detection that combines offline transformer-based classification with selective large language model (LLM) explainability. The system employs a two-stage pipeline in which a local BERT-based classifier evaluates all input text and filters non-propagandistic content, while only high-confidence candidates are forwarded to an LLM for rhetorical technique labeling and explanation. This design enables cost-aware, privacy-conscious, and scalable analysis by reducing unnecessary reliance on external models.

Propasafe-Hybrid identifies propagandistic techniques such as loaded language, obfuscation, and appeal to fear, and generates concise natural language rationales that make these techniques interpretable to users. By …

“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.