Digital Commons Network^™

The Uses Of Community In Modern American Rhetoric, Cody Ryan Hawley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the functions of the term “community” in American social and political rhetoric. I contend that community serves as a god-term, or expression of value and order, which rhetors use to motivate actions, endorse values, include/exclude persons, and compensate for modern losses. Informed by the philosophy of Kenneth Burke, I explore the general features of “rhetorics of community,” including community’s ambiguity and status as an automatic good, the relationship between community and modernity, the myth of communal loss, and the uses of community as a site of political unity and contest. I analyze the writings of John Humphrey …

In Search Of Solidarity: Identification Participation In Virtual Fan Communities, Jaime Shamado Robb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study questions the way sports fans create (a sense of) community through online conversations. Here, ‘community’ and ‘internet’ are seen as invitational terms that suggest an authentic social interaction. By examining the language used by fans to sustain a sense of solidarity in the virtual realm, this study questions the ways in which rhetoric frames the situation. Participation in the virtual space relies on practices of identification derived from physical engagements. By using a rhetorical approach, this study illuminates the way individual participants operationalize a rhetoric in virtual conversations that spiritualize the fan’s experience at the base of a …

A Semiotic Phenomenology Of Homelessness And The Precarious Community: A Matter Of Boundary, Heather Renee Curry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation focuses on the articulation of the concepts of precarity —i.e., temporary, affective, creative, immaterial and insecure labor—and community in an overheating system. My site of inquiry is homelessness broadly, but more specifically the labor of panhandling and the identity of “the panhandler.” I recognize that primary theorizations of precarity have located it as a problem of labor and economy. Others have looked at it from the sociological domain. My work looks at precarity as diffuse across social, political, and communal systems, but primarily as an effect of the problem of overheating as it manifests at varying levels of …

Changing Landscapes: End-Of-Life Care & Communication At A Zen Hospice, Ellen W. Klein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines end-of-life experiences at a small Zen hospice in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Through an exploration of how end-of-life communication, sense-making, decision-making, and care in this setting differ from that of typical clinical settings, this project highlights and interrogates the experiences of dying as spiritually, rhetorically, narratively, relationally, and communally bound events.

Keywords: Zen hospice, end of life, narrative sensemaking, medical-ethical decision making, spirituality, healing rhetoric, communities of practice

Community On The Menu: Seven-Courses To Cultivate Familial Bonds, Exchange Social Capital, And Nourish Community, David Franklin Purnell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an auto/ethnographic account, which examines food, close personal friendships, and community. The research combines autoethnography with ethnographic observations and personal/group interviews conducted within the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa, Florida. The observations are of a weekly dinner event referred to by most attendees as Family Dinner. I am one of the founders of this event; the participants of this study are neighbors (or were at some point in time) as well as past and present attendees of the weekly dinner.

The purpose of this research is to illustrate how food can be a tool to build …

Community As Metaphor: Dialectical Tensions Of A Racially Diverse Organization, Joseph Jacob Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, a sense of community has declined throughout the United States. Common Point Community Church has responded to this trend by prioritizing "community" as an organizational metaphor. The present study explores how this metaphor is co-constructed through the communication practices of current organizational leaders and members. I begin this process, first, by positioning the study within existing literature on institutional theory, institutional legitimacy, community, community of practice, social construction of race, sensemaking, organizational metaphor, tension-centered approach, and dialectic theory. Building upon more than three years of ethnographic field work, I then outline the study's context and methodology. Next, …

Constructing Alternative Christian Identity: An Ethnography Of Jesus People Usa's Cornerstone Festival, Brian Johnston

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines processes through which alternative Christian identities are constructed, maintained, and performed at the annual Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. Organized and managed by Jesus People USA (JPUSA), an urban commune in Chicago, Illinois, the festival includes non-traditional methods of religious expression including rock music, making camp, play, and community-building. Cornerstone Festival attracts and includes members of the Christian faith who would not otherwise be included in traditionally organized Christian groups and fosters interaction between these less enfranchised members and more traditionally minded and socialized Christian practitioners. JPUSA appropriates the festival format as a method of religious expression …