Digital Commons Network^™

A Hermeneutic Composition Pedagogy: The Student As Self, Citizen, And Writer In Dewey, Arendt, And Ricoeur, Gregory Haley

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation is primarily concerned with describing a hermeneutic theory of composition pedagogy for the purpose of developing socially engaged, self-reflective, and critically conscious citizens of a democracy. This work examines the intersection of higher education and civic responsibility that has been the foundational motive of academics since the first schools were opened by Isocrates and Plato. The question now, as it has been since the days of Plato, is how to educate new citizens to become informed, engaged critics of their environments for the purpose of maintaining a healthy self governance and preserving the democratic ideals of equality, justice, …

Speaking For Himself: Odysseus And Rhetoric In Sophocles' Philoctetes, Christian Wiggo Axelgard

Theses and Dissertations

In order to reconcile the deus ex machina at the end of Sophocles' Philoctetes with the actions of the rest of the play, this project analyzes the role of Odysseus within the play with special attention to rhetoric. By considering the character of Odysseus as a complex construct referencing both literary and historical contexts, this study suggests that Neoptolemus in fact errs in siding with Philoctetes to the degree that he does by the tragedy's end. The themes of the play involving Philoctetes and Neoptolemus then become warnings against inappropriate emotional responses, again consistent with Heracles' advice in the deus …

A Discursive Analysis Of A Pregnancy Center: How Pregnant Women Are Encouraged To Develop A Sense Of Self-Worth And Emotional Wellbeing Through The Use Of Rhetoric And Imagery, Jessica Postma

Masters Theses

This study presents and alternative approach to how pregnancy is interpreted in western society and how settings such as a pregnancy center both challenges and reinforces these social standards. The promotion of abstinence, the aversion to abortion, notions of truth and morality, religious narratives, and the standard of care are all integral components to this analysis of pregnancy, language, and culture.

Bridging The Gap: An Invitational Approach To Confucianism And Daoism, David Munson

Communication and Rhetorical Studies - Theses

The idea of cross or multiculturalism in today's rhetorical scholarship is essential because it allows scholars to apply a critical perspective to traditional modes of rhetorical scholarship. Many contemporary scholars, such as George Kennedy, Xing Lu, Roberta Blinkley and Carol Lipson have recently embraced a cross-cultural rhetorical perspective in their works. At the same time, other scholars have critiqued the traditional canon as too limiting and too reliant on notions of rationality, logic, antagonism and truth. Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin provide one such critique of the Greco-Roman tradition by approaching the idea of rhetoric through an invitational lens that …

’A Strange Sympathy’: The Rhetoric Of Emotion In The History Of The Nun; Or, The Fair Vow-Breaker, Elizabeth J. Mathews

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.

Mobile Knowledge, Karma Points, And Digital Peers: The Tacit Epistemology And Linguistic Representation Of Moocs, Lisa Portmess

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Media representations of massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as those offered by Coursera, edX and Udacity reflect tension and ambiguity in their bold promise of democratized education and global knowledge sharing. An approach to MOOCs that emphasizes the tacit epistemology of such representations suggests a richer account of the ambiguities of MOOCs, the unsettled linguistic and visual representations that reflect the strange lifeworld of global online courses and the pressing need for promising innovation that seeks to serve the restless global desire for knowledge. This perspective piece critically appraises the linguistic laboratory of thought such representation reveals and its …

"Game Recognize Game": How Hip-Hop Rhetoric Affects Perceptions Of Composition In College Freshmen, Ages 18-24, Veronica Nanette Williams

Theses and Dissertations

In an effort to help justify hip-hop as a valid example of rhetoric, this project is an informal investigation of how the hip-hop rhetoric affects perceptions of composition in college freshmen ages 18-24 using a small survey sample of first-year composition students. The resulting data indicates that hip-hop rhetoric does affect the perceptions of composition in hip-hop oriented students, specifically, hip-hop rhetoric's emphasis on ethos, or authenticity, seems to influence those students' assessments of their college compositions in terms of classical rhetorical aims.

The Politicization Of Popular Culture: A Case Study In Reagan And Star Wars, Nathan A. Wingert

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This project examined the use of Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric, specifically the “Star Wars,” “Zero Option” and “Evil Empire” speeches. It answers the question: Why do we know SDI as Star Wars? It also The rationale for the study came from myriad sources, including the historical and political undertones of the Star Wars films and rhetorical criticism of other Reagan speeches. G. Thomas Goodnight’s analysis linked all three speeches together as a reformulation of wartime rhetoric, so that was the rationale for analyzing three speeches. After performing a rhetorical criticism using Burkean identification as the lens, there are several results: Reagan …

The Metalogicon Of John Of Salisbury: Medieval Rhetoric As Educational Praxis, Brian Gilchrist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the following question: what are the implications of John of Salisbury's rhetorical theory for his approach to education? The Metalogicon, John's defense of the trivium, represents the primary text analyzed throughout the project. John's medieval rhetorical theory explicated the reciprocal relationship between rhetoric and education. The art of rhetoric acquired educational elements by providing ethical-theoretical frameworks to inform the practices of students and teachers. Experiences from the practices of students and teachers influenced the art of rhetoric. John called for an approach to medieval rhetorical education that could be placed into the service of all people living …

The Rhetorical Event Of Modern Southern Humor: "A Requisite Element In Discourse", David Allen Wright

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the rhetorical nature and dynamics of Southern humor in the second half of the twentieth century by analyzing, from a distinctly rhetorical perspective, a selection of popular Southern humor texts. It seeks to understand how Southern humor happens--its methods and techniques--and it also seeks to understand, as much as possible, the implications of these events for the various interlocutors and participants involved. By investigating the stylistic, storytelling, and linguistic techniques of Southern humor, while relying on the scholarship of writers in a variety of academic disciplines, I hope to answer the following research question: how does Southern …

Hiding In Plain Sight: The Rhetorical Workings Of Simone De Beauvoir's Feminist Language, Emily Crawford

Theses and Dissertations

Simone de Beauvoir's 1952 English rendering of The Second Sex translated into instant U.S. feminist acceptance, but by 1981 Julia Kristeva's call for "Women's Time" coupled with the rise of poststructuralism in the academy essentially sounded the death knell for Beauvoir in the world of feminist language theories. Where the new French feminists explored experimental ecriture feminine, Beauvoir's language appeared unsophisticated and outdated. In the past twenty years a handful of feminists have slowly and intermittently begun to reconsider Beauvoir's language from a variety of post-poststructuralist perspectives. My dissertation adds to this growing scholarship by exploring the rhetorical workings of …

Visual Jurisprudence, Richard Sherwin

Articles & Chapters

Lawyers, judges, and jurors face a vast array of visual evidence and visual argument inside the contemporary courtroom. From videos documenting crimes and accidents to computer displays of their digital simulation, increasingly, the search for fact-based justice is becoming an offshoot of visual meaning making. But when law migrates to the screen it lives there as other images do, motivating belief and judgment on the basis of visual delight and unconscious fantasies and desires as well as actualities. Law as image also shares broader cultural anxieties concerning not only the truth of the image, but also the mimetic capacity itself, …

A Multifarious Approach To Understanding Rhetorical Fragmentation In Vladimir Nabokov’S Lolita, William S. Tucker

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

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 …

Rhetoric And Framing: Influence On Public Opinion In The Martin/Zimmerman Case, Milagros Figueredo Sowers

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study seeks to analyze the importance of framing on public opinion. This analysis looks at the characteristics of communication and how they are conveyed. It also seeks to examine underlying themes in cases where public opinion was radically shifted and perceptions changed. This style of qualitative measurement is able to provide suggestions on why a media source would present a specific topic one way and then slant a similar topic in a different manner or format . Mass media is looked at in a critical manner with an attempt to hypothesize as to its purpose in use of framing. …

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 …

Discovered By The Process: A Methodology For Twentieth-Century Moral Fiction, Sean Adriaan Labbe

Dissertations

One of the great ironies of the "ethical turn" that literary criticism has taken in the last several decades is that while we as literary critics strive to be ethical or moral, we usually feel embarrassed at actually taking about moral concepts, especially as they are manifested in literary texts. As I am interested in how to discuss moral issues depicted in literary texts without reading them naively and reductively for guidelines to live by or for a social program to implement, my dissertation is designed to model a method of inquiry that approaches literary texts of the twentieth century …

Minding The Gap : A Rhetorical History Of The Achievement Gap, Laura Elizabeth Jones

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Minding the Gap: A Rhetorical History of the Achievement Gap arose as an inquiry into the rhetorical congestion around the phrase achievement gap in public discourse. Having been used in support of multiple, often competing, education agendas, the phrase seems versatile almost to the point of emptiness, and yet it seemingly retains its persuasive power. Examining the history of the phrase, I reveal that the notion of the achievement gap is rooted in the logic of segregation and the rhetoric of disability, and serves to construct students in ways that paradoxically undermine efforts to expand access to educational opportunity. Although …

In Spite Of Yourself : The Asignifying Force Of Humor And Laughter, Kevin Michael Casper

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In Spite of Yourself: The Asignifying Force of Humor and Laughter calls upon the interruptive moments of uncontrollable laughter to challenge rhetoric’s historical treatment of humor and laughter. Anyone who has ever suffered a fit of hysterical laughter at precisely the wrong moment, or has begun to laugh spontaneously at an inappropriate joke before stopping short, can attest to laughter’s uniquely uncontrollable force. Beyond all reason and control, laughter interrupts us and reminds us of the limits of the human subject. Because laughter does not signify meaning in the traditional communicative sense, it exerts an asignifying force irreducible to the …

The Rhetorical Strategies Of Don Quixote And Sancho Panza, David T. Tarvin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the rhetorical components of the famous novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes’ novel continues to be celebrated around the world four hundred years later. His two main protagonists epitomize opposite virtues, but their love for one another, and the promise of an ínsula, creates a bond that overcomes their differences. Don Quixote, the mad knight, values lofty ideas idealized in chivalric romance. Conversely, Sancho, the simple squire, values tangible materials he can see and touch in his own life. While the two characters first appear to be contrary in nature, by the journey’s end, as …

As Seen On Twitter: African-American Rhetorical Traditions Gone Viral, Tiffani Long

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This communication research study identifies the presence of the African-American rhetorical traditions of call-response, signification, tonal semantics, and narrative sequencing used in communication on the online social media network, Twitter. The objective of this study is to provide insight into the culture and community of Twitter. Additionally, the research demonstrates how traditional oral rhetorical traditions survive in the digital world. Over a 15-day period, tweets were collected by the author using a computer screenshot feature. Using a coding rubric, three coders, including the author, coded the collected tweets for the four rhetorical traditions. Resulting from this procedure, the coders concluded …

The Rhetoric Of Revolution, Christopher Reimels

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This paper examines the external and internal changes that occurred in the French language as a result of the French Revolution. In terms of external changes, it examines the perception and overall regulation of the language that resulted directly from the social and political upheaval of French society in the late eighteenth century. While most external changes that were attempted did not come to fruition during the Revolution itself, many aspects of the French language of the early twenty-first century can trace their heritage back to the ideals of the movement. Internally, changes were manifested primarily in the French lexicon, …

Aqui Es: The Rhetoric Of Identification In An Act Of Local Branding, Bonnie M. Garcia

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Brands are a large part of our cultural discourse. In the Rio Grande Valley a group of network-marketing sponsored entrepreneurs has tapped into branding as a rhetorical resource. I use Burke’s concept of consubstantiation to analyze the rhetorical motives represented both in the use of branding in general and in the “Aqui Es” sign utilized by local nutrition clubs. Burke’s concept of consubstantiation allows me to contextualize the production of the sign and open avenues to explore the relationships behind the sign’s use. I then utilize Lacanian psychoanalysis to explain the psychological motives behind the sign’s use and production. I …

Intermodality In Teaching Writing, Margarette Christensen

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation articulates a writing pedagogy based on a theory of intermodality to help writing instructors navigate the affordances and challenges of multimodal composition. Drawing from recent discoveries in neuroscience about how the brain makes meaning, I situate this pedagogy of intermodality – literally, “between the modes” – within the Rhetoric and Composition traditions of embodied rhetoric and visual/multi-sensory rhetoric. A pedagogy attuned to intermodality capitalizes on how the senses (“modes”) work together to create meaning when composing with sound, image, movement, and text. In addition to the five senses, intermodality also incorporates the cultural, social, and material aspects of …

Come As You Are, As I Want You To Be: Grunge/Riot Grrrl Pedagogy And Identity Construction In The Second Year Writing Program, Rory J. Callais

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A look at how artists in the grunge and Riot Grrrl movements constructed public identities that typically appealed to the economic, cultural, and social conditions of the early 1990s. These public personas -- perceived as “honest” -- were defined by negotiation with mainstream culture, the notion of the “confessional,” and gender construction. By examining how these identities were constructed, composition students can see how cultural influences mediate their own identity construction. A “grunge/Riot Grrrl” pedagogy is proposed that encourages students to look at how identities are constructed across a multimedia landscape, reflecting the way grunge and Riot Grrrl artists built …

Analyzing Nurse-Physician Discursive Practices In Acute Patient Care, John Dinolfo

All Dissertations

This mixed methods study in inter-professional health communication assesses the pedagogical role of writing and visual communication in the education of non-traditional and traditional Nursing students as they interpret and apply the concepts of message framing and message reception in nurse-physician communication. To achieve that goal, this study analyzes the dynamics of terministic screens as message frames that can determine message reception in nurse-physician communication regarding the status of an acute care patient.
The study was conducted in two Nursing writing and communication classes during the Spring 2011 semester. Two study groups (combined across classes) included a mixed population of …

What I Mean When I Say Autism: Re-Thinking The Roles Of Language And Literacy In Autism Discourse, Bernice M. Olivas

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Literacy studies are deeply intertwined with issues of identity. Olivas explores the ways that public discourses of autism have constructed an autism “Identity kit,” as defined by James Paul Gee, which harms autistic students and communities more than it helps. This is particularly true for adult autistics. Considering the growing presence of the autistic learner in the composition classroom, it is important to understand how public discourse influences classroom dynamics. Drawing heavily on her own experience as the mother of autistic sons and on Melanie Yergeau’s “Circle Wars: Reshaping the Typical Autism Essay,” Olivas explores how her children have been …

The Rhetorical Situation Of Facebook, Justin L. Suiter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The online social network Facebook is a site of ocnsiderable rhetorical activity. Because it exists at the frontier of Web 2.0 or "new media" technology, this rhetorical activity has certain novel features that require an expansion of the concept of rhetorical situation. I apply Lloyd Bitzer's original theory of rhetorical situation to the context of Facebook in order to highlight the ways in which technological advances and shifts in theory necessitate a broader understanding of rhetorical situations. I argue that two of Bitzer's three essential elements, constraints and audience, are applicable to Facebook but must be adapted to suit its …

Toward A Working Theory Of Neurorhetorics, Jeffrey L. Honnold

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This piece makes the claim that rhetoric is first philosophy--before philosophy, epistemology, ontology, or any other field--or that rhetoric is, at the least, on equal footing as these fields because:

empathy--and thusly the impulse for communication--is physiologically hardwired into humans; special distinctions between human and animal are largely artificial constructions, as is evidenced by neurosciences; "hard" science, in the form of neurosciences, is providing entrance points & opportunities for rhetoric to raise its status within the academy; and said neurosciences, in addition to empathy studies, have shown strong evidence supporting linguistic and evolutionary links between humans and other species, thereby …

Food For Thought: Sustainability, Community-Engaged Teaching And Research, And Critical Food Literacy, Dianna Winslow

Writing Program – Dissertations

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. Marion Nestle's Food Politics. Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. The films Food, Inc. and The Future of Food. Debates over the industrialized food and farming system currently circulating in nonfiction books, documentaries, and public forums have immediacy for college students--and for anyone who eats. Food for Thought: Sustainability, Community-Engaged Teaching and Critical Food Literacy argues that fostering the development of critical food literacy is necessary for college students to have a voice in current and future public conversations on food politics and environmental sustainability, and the social …