Rhetoric Commons^™

Mapping Dissertation Genre Ecology, Kate Lisbeth Pantelides

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Though the pervasive rumor that the “traditional” dissertation persists because of the “I suffered, so they too should suffer” mentality — the professor revenge theory — students are often the ones eager to pin down writing genres so that they can master them. However, hopes to stabilize and thus capture the secret or equation of the dissertation genre are futile, since genres, like language, are alive: rhetorical, evolving, and flexible. Thus, to demonstrate the contemporary context of the dissertation genre, the conflicting perspectives of university stakeholders, the forces working on the genre to enact change, and the process by which …

Unhinged: Kairos And The Invention Of The Untimely, Robert Leston

Publications and Research

Traditionally, kairos has been seen as a “timely” concept, and so invention is said to emerge from the timeliness of a cultural and historical situation. But what if invention was thought of as the potential to shift historical courses through the injection of something new or alien into a situation? This essay argues that kairos has not been able to free itself from its historical constraints because it has been bound to a human sense of temporality. By evolving along patterns different from print, the apparatus of the cinema developed in a way where it was not bound to illustrating …

Without Content: Rhetoric, American Anarchism, And The End(S) Of Radical Politics, Michael John Ristich

Wayne State University Dissertations

My study suggests there is a homology between the Platonic critique of rhetoric and the critique of anarchism made by both Marxism and liberalism. I investigate this problematic by taking up a genealogical examination of anarchism in America that begins with America's founding and concludes with a discussion of the resurgence of populist/anti-Statist rhetoric(s) in the early twenty-first century. In doing so, I argue that anarchism is a politics "without content;" it is a rhetorical politics that challenges the (re)turns to metaphysics and Marxism in the wake of poststructuralist and postmodern thought. Specifically, in light of the contemporary Tea Party …

Analyzing The Effectiveness Of Al Qaeda's Online Influence Operations By Means Of Propaganda Theory, David K. Lyons

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis sought to explore the use of propaganda by al Qaeda through the lenses of established propaganda theorists and theories. Through analyzing former al Qaeda releases and case studies in the context of propaganda theory this thesis established a clearer understanding of the effectiveness of al Qaeda's propaganda. After analyzing the propaganda and case studies it was discovered that the rate of those engaging in attacks based on al Qaeda's online influence operations is insignificant. The concerns that al Qaeda is recruiting numerous individuals to engage in attacks based on its online propaganda operations might be overstated and while …

Rewriting Revision: A Case Study Of First Year Composition Students, Myshie M. Pagel

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This case study focuses on the revision practices of seven first year composition students at a U.S./Mexico border community college. The analysis of revision practices is framed by the negotiation of dissonance between gist and intention. Three types of data were collected: screen captured writing sessions, instructor comments, and participant interviews. The data was analyzed through a grid based on Faigley and Witte's taxonomy grid of revision changes. This included three major categories: surface level, meaning preserving, and text base level changes. As in past studies on revision, the participants in this case study followed a similar trend. A majority …

Theoretical Communities Of Praxis: The University Writing Center A Cultural Contact Zone, Randall William Monty

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The fundamental purpose of Theoretical Communities of Praxis: The University Writing Center as Cultural Contact Zone is to investigate the situatedness of Writing Center Studies, defining it as an autonomous (sub)discipline and interdisciplinary contact zone within the larger discipline of Rhetoric and Composition. In order to meet this objective, a "Communities of Praxis" methodological and theoretical framework, based on scholarship of Critical Discourse Analysis, ecocomposition, and Contextualist Research Paradigm, is applied in the analysis of a variety of WCS discourses. In doing so, WCS is repositioned as a series of interrelated, triangulated contact zones that are based on collaborative interactions …

(Re)Mapping The Rhetorical Situation: Toward A Transactional Networked Ecology, Ramesh Kumar Pokharel

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The existing theories of the rhetorical situation that focus on and around Bitzer's theory define the rhetorical situation as something "real," "genuine," "objective" based on historic reality. I believe that this modernist containment to perceive the rhetorical situation as fixed entities limit our understanding about it in a broader sense, because it cannot capture the changed meaning that naturally exists with the impact of new media and technology. With the advent of new media and technology, the notion of rhetorical situation also has changed and thus there is an exigence of a new theory of the rhetorical situations that better …

The Service-Learning Writing Classroom: A Safe Haven For Articulating Difficult Stories About Whiteness And Race, Adam Webb

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Service-learning is an educational method that is usually examined for its practical applications and outcomes, and can help instructors and students to realize the connective aspect of classroom discussions, assignments, activities and discourses that occur within the community. In this respect, "connective" refers to more than just bridging the distance between the classroom and community using service-learning. Instead, it acts like the "connective human tissue" that unites individuals together. Individuals as biological beings themselves are the connective tissue that unites them linguistically, physically and emotionally. In essence, the connective human tissue that unites individuals together creates an intertwined community through …

Dead Man's Switch: Disaster Rhetorics In A Posthuman Age, Daniel Patrick Richards

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When a disaster the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill takes place, is it natural for the news media stories, investigative reports, and public deliberation to focus almost exclusively on finding the person or group responsible for such a horrendous scene. Rhetorically speaking, the discourse surrounding the event can be characterized as a reductive form of praise and blame rhetoric (epideixis). However, these efforts, while well-intentioned, are troublesome because searches for the one technical cause and the sole personal culpability are thwarted by the sheer complexity of the ecological, technological, scientific, institutional, and communicative network required for …

“‘Gulag’—Slavery, Inc.”: The Power Of Place And The Rhetorical Life Of A Cold War Map, Timothy Barney

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

In 1951, the American Federation of Labor produced a map of the Soviet Union showing the locations of 175 forced labor camps administered by the Gulag. Widely appropriated in popular magazines and newspapers, and disseminated internationally as propaganda against the U.S.S.R., the map, entitled “‘Gulag’—Slavery, Inc.,” would be cited as “one of the most widely circulated pieces of anti-Communist literature.” By contextualizing the map’s origins and circulation, as well as engaging in a close analysis of its visual codes and intertextual relationships with photographs, captions, and other materials, this essay argues that the Gulag map became an evidentiary weapon in …

Review Of Digital Detroit: Rhetoric And Space In The Age Of The Network, Timothy Barney

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

In 1971, rogue Wayne State geographer William Bunge (placed on a federal list of dangerous intellectuals) published Fitzgerald: Geography of a Revolution, a radical polemic about how everyday citizens of a Detroit ghetto could challenge oppression and become geographers of their own neighborhoods. Forty years later, Jeff Rice (formerly a Wayne State professor himself) revisits Detroit geography, but this time largely from his laptop (and without, I hope, the same kind of federal harassment). For while Bunge’s Fitzgerald and Jeff Rice’s Digital Detroit share similar terrain, as well as a love for the city in all its contradictions, …

The Nicest Kids In Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'N' Roll, And The Struggle For Civil Rights In 1950'S Philadelphia (Book Review), Nicole Maurantonio

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

More than fifty years have elapsed since the popular television program American Bandstand first appeared in homes across the United States, and still mere mention of the show continues to conjure images of teenagers, black and white, boppin’ to the sounds of emerging musical talents from Jackie Wilson to Dusty Springfield. This very image, and the potent memory of a racially integrated youth demographic dancing together in harmony, Matthew F. D elmont argues in The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia, is precisely the problem. …

The Rhetoric Of Mom Blogs: A Study Of Mothering Made Public, Madeline Yonker

Writing Program – Dissertations

This dissertation examines the phenomenon of mom blogs to determine their handling of conventional motherhood and the rhetorical nature of their discourse. Unlike other prior studies of blogs and specifically of mom blogs, the dissertation examines both the blog entries themselves and the many comments such entries generate from readers.

In addition, it seeks to determine the values and rhetorical practices of any community that might be established through such blog commenting. To accomplish these aims, the dissertation focuses on the entries and comments from three particular blogs chosen to represent the network of mom bloggers.

The commonplaces or ideals …

"Carefull" Ethos: The Construction Of Ethos In Dorothy Leigh's The Mothers Blessing, Julia D. Combs

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As one of the most popular conduct manuals in the early seventeenth century, Dorothy Leigh's The Mothers Blessing is often categorized as private, domestic literature. In this dissertation, I examine the strategies Leigh employed to create ethos, and I argue that her strategic depiction of herself as a "fearefull, faithfull, carefull" mother helped her authorize herself as a public figure. Specifically, I investigate the strategies Leigh employed to create a persuasive ethos within the genre of the conduct manual. Through mother-based ethos strategies, Leigh presented herself deliberately, augmenting her authority as Mother and positioning her work within a male-dominated print …

Interpretation And Construction In Altering Rules, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a response to Ian Ayres's, "Regulating Opt-Out: An Economic Theory of Altering Rules," 121 Yale L.J. 2032 (2012). Ayres identifies an important question: How does the law decide when parties have opted-out of a contractual default? Unfortunately, his article tells only half of the story about such altering rules. Ayres cares about rules designed to instruct parties on how to get the terms that they want. By focusing on such rules he ignores altering rules designed instead to interpret the nonlegal meaning of the parties' acts or agreement. This limited vision is characteristic of economic approaches to …

On Silence, Daisy Levy

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

I wrote this piece as a way to try to reconcile some difficult events in my life as a teacher, a scholar, and a person living in a complicated world. I wanted to make visible the collage effect of all these things, and so a collage essay was the most interesting form for me. I examine the politics surrounding subjectivity, authority, and the role of voice, in and out of the classroom, in daily life.The events I am drawing on are related: comments from a student on institutional course evaluations, rejection letters from a prominent university's graduate writing program, reflection …

Comedy As A Feminist Rhetoric, Liz Lemon Style, Risa Polansky Shiman

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Given the stereotypes that come along with traditional feminist activism – She's a feminist. She looks angry, and I can see from here she's not wearing a bra – and the frustration feminists often face as a result, comedy is an entertaining, and therefore presumably palatable, way to expose contemporary feminist issues to broad audiences. But is it effective? A fan of ironic, silly, and sometimes (shhh, don't tell) lewd humor, I'm no stranger to The Looks, which range from “I don't get it" to “You're not as funny as you think you are" to “I am both disgusted and …

"I Had An Abortion": A Feminist Analysis Of The Abortion Debate, Elizabeth Fleitz Kuechenmeister

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This article explores the rhetoric surrounding the controversial “I Had an Abortion" t-shirt, sold by Planned Parenthood in 2005-2006. In order to understand the rhetorical impact of the t-shirt, Burkean dramatism is used to identify what terms are added and what terms are overlooked. A dramatism analysis of both pro-choice and pro-life rhetoric is included to position the t-shirt in the abortion debate.

Things Are Happening!, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

#Definerhetoric, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.