Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Rhetorical Criticism Of "Fleabag": Tragicomedy And What It Means To Be A Feminist, Morgan Ashley White

Communication Studies

This essay conducts a rhetorical criticism of the television series Fleabag, analyzing how creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge uses tragicomedy to dismantle the notion that there is one right way to be a feminist. After providing background on Waller-Bridge, the history of feminism, and the creation of Fleabag, the essay closely examines several key scenes from the show. It demonstrates how Waller-Bridge employs humor intertwined with serious subject matter to highlight the complexities and contradictions women face in navigating conflicting societal expectations around gender. Through the flawed yet honest portrayal of Fleabag herself and her interactions with other nuanced female …

Towards A Posthumanist Sociomaterial Conceptualization Of Intercultural Rhetoric, Amir Kalan

Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization

Intercultural rhetoric has a human-centered view of culture and considers humans’ ethnicities, beliefs, and social practices as crucial components of rhetorical traditions. Conceptualizing a posthumanist sociomaterial approach to intercultural rhetoric, this article suggests that writing across cultures can be viewed as rhetorical transition between two sociomaterial networks with non-human, as well as human, factors. It explains that posthuman intercultural rhetoric can turn into a field where researchers study political, economic, and administrative networks in which texts are funded, constructed, regulated, disseminated, sold, bought, and cited. This area of writing studies would be interested in how rhetoric is constructed and used …

#Hotgirlsemestersyllabus, Katrina Marie Overby, Gheni Platenburg, Niya Pickett Miller

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Retórica Intercultural En El Discurso Académico Universitario: Las Funciones Retóricas De La Citación En Los Trabajos De Fin De Máster Escritos En Español Y En Inglés Por Hablantes Nativos Y No Nativos, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

This research derives from the interest in learning the cultural differences in citation practices in the academic genre of Master's thesis of native Spanish (Ee), non-native Filipino writers of Spanish (Fe), native Filipino writers of English (Fi), and American writers of English. A total of thirty-two (32) master´s theses – eight (8) for each group – were analyzed. A quantitative and qualitative methodology was used to study this phenomenon based on the computerized textual analysis of the rhetorical function of citations arranged in typological classification that modified the outline proposed by Petrić in his 2007 article. The results obtained from …

The Daring Muse Of Early Stuart Funeral Elegies, James Doelman

Brescia School of Humanities Publications

Funeral elegies of the early Stuart period are often marked by moments of “distraction” prompted by sorrow, and they venture into the realm of detraction as the poet turns against all that which lies beyond the dead figure who is at the heart of the elegy. While the funeral elegy in general was a copious and digressive form, exceptional deaths pressed elegists to stretch the usual rhetoric of grief and commemoration. This study offers a wide-ranging consideration of the period’s funeral elegies, in both manuscript and print, and by poets ranging from the canonical to the anonymous. It stands apart …

Expanding Landscapes: Intersections Between Writing Center Work And Other Academic Fields, Vicki R. Kennell, Maria Eloisa (Lisa) Nuguid, Vanessa Pruitt, Ashley Garla

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Presentations

This presentation explores the intersections between writing center work and math education, counseling psychology, and speech/hearing sciences. The four fields share more similarities than first expected, such as prioritizing relational approaches and maintaining client agency. Implications for writing centers include the need to adjust consultant education to overtly explore such overlaps in order to increase new consultants’ confidence and circumvent potential problems caused by differing assumptions.

Digital Rhetoric Of The Invisible: Bisexual Literacy Practices On Tiktok, 2020–2021, Olivia Wood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation uses auto- and digital-ethnographic methods to analyze the literacy practices of bisexual TikTok users primarily during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, during which time TikTok exploded in popularity among U.S. social media users, especially among young adults. It is also an exercise in neuroqueer composing, diverging at times from the norms of academic writing and the dissertation genre to perform and intentionally draw attention to neuroqueer styles of thinking and communication. I argue that bisexual invisibility and contemporary bi+ rhetorical activity must be understood within the context of LGBTQ+ political history, particularly …

A Research Center At The End Of The World A Study Of Local Writing Practices In A Global Context, Ana María Cortés Lagos

Dissertations - ALL

How do transnational flows and collaborations shape scientific research writing? What role do local language practices play in a global science context? Or how do phenomena of globalization and internationalization impact the work of scientists writing for local audiences and “with a local eye”? Through a case study drawing on memory, archival material, and interviews, this dissertation explores the language practices of a team of vaccine researchers working from a country in the global semi-periphery (Chile). Drawing on elements of mobility, activity and genre theories, this study traces the work of these scientists across space and time and shows how …

The Process Becomes Part Of You: A Methodology For Analyzing Institutional Mediation And Programmatic Possibilities In Community Writing, Chad Seader

Dissertations - ALL

To guide antiracist curriculum reform in higher education and better support college writers from racially marginalized and traditionally underserved backgrounds, this dissertation emerged from a five-year ethnographic study of a slam and spoken-word poetry program housed in a DEI office at a large research university. Merging feminist ethnographic methods and sociolinguistic scalar theory, this study develops a methodology for analyzing how institutional influence affects how people engage with writing programs in curricular, co-curricular, and community contexts alike—even in spaces outside of formal institutional structures. The study finds that student writers use slam and spoken-word poetry to bridge the embodied knowledge …

Fighting The Gravity: Settler Colonial Interventions In Land Based Memory, Ezekiel Shawn Choffel

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation establishes a settler-colonial ontological frame work through the melding of Western storytelling genre conventions with Indigenous storytelling methods. Through a series of interconnected non-fiction stories, this framework demonstrates how to directly engage with a settler-colonial subject position by building a method of constellation of personal experience in order to understand options beyond capitalism and settler-colonial complacency. This method is then applied to two geographic locations, the Standing Rock Reservation and Flint, MI. The author shares connections and builds stories through connections with the landscape and specific timeframes (the Water Protectors movement at Standing Rock and the Flint Water …

Critical Race Religious Literacy: Exposing The Taproot Of Contemporary Evangelical Attacks On Crt, Robert O. Smith, Aja Y. Martinez

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

No abstract provided.

Effectively Affective: Examining The Ethos Of One Hbcu Writing Center, Karen Keaton Jackson, Amara Hand

Writing Center Journal

Over the past several decades, writing center scholarship has evolved to include multiple theories and pedagogies that led to widely used best practices. As is the case in many disciplines, often writing centers at large, research PWIs are most often cited and highlighted within the scholarship. While many of those readings do offer helpful strategies for working with students at all levels, often they do not account for the unique contexts and diverse student populations that make up many HBCUs. As a result, more research from a variety of writing centers is needed so practitioners see there are multiple ways …

Developing And Sustaining A Graphic Scholarship Collection For Academic Libraries, Stewart Brower, Toni Hoberecht, Zane Ratcliffe, Bethie Seay

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

In early 2021, the Schusterman Library at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa satellite campus took a new step towards building a culture of interest by creating the Graphic Scholarship Collection. This new endeavor is a curated collection of graphic novels, primarily non-fiction, aligned with the academic programs on campus, as well as promoting University initiatives in diversity, equity, and inclusion. A new organizational structure for the collection materials and their circulation metrics will be examined in detail. There will also be consideration of the challenges of selection and acquisition by a mixed team of selectors, some of whom have no experience …

The Course Of Empire: An Analysis, Devyn Woodard

Emerging Writers

This essay delves into the themes of and motivations for Thomas Cole’s series of paintings, The Course of Empire. Through an analysis of the different rhetorical appeals and fallacies employed by Cole in the series of paintings, the deeper meaning behind the works comes to light. This analysis serves as a bridge between the environment the paintings were created in almost two hundred years ago, and the contemporary global landscape, which is still in need of its lessons, even so many years later.

The Bridge, Volume 21, 2024, Bridgewater State University

the bridge

Designers:

Mollie Rose Burk

Liz Cowden

Zachary Lucius

Colm McDonough

Arlene Perez

Editor-in-Chief

Ashley LaVergne

Editors:

Jaina Hicks

Emma Voelker

Faculty Advisor:

Jessica Melendy

Design Advisor:

Professor Alain Blunt

Rhetoric On Climate Change And The Effects On Public Perceptions, Hailey Mina Rose Dossey

Cal Poly Humboldt Capstone Honor Roll

One of the extraordinary challenges humans are facing today is climate change and over the past two decades, the majority of the world has moved from questioning its legitimacy to accepting it as fact. With most people having accepted climate change as a reality, the goal of climate communication has shifted from spreading awareness to motivating audiences to take action. Through this analytical discussion, we will look into effective and ineffective methods of rhetoric as it can help guide us to a better understanding of why certain rhetoric that has previously been successful in other fields may not be the …

Identity-Making Processes In The Storytelling And Experiences Of Tabletop Roleplaying Game (Trpg) Players, Allen Barnhart

Master of Rhetoric and Composition

Tabletop roleplaying game (TRPG) play involves complex social interactions and imaginative processes. These recursive elements cause players to evaluate and reevaluate the identities of themselves and the identities of their imagined characters. Previous research has established that TRPG play unwittingly allows players to rehearse social interactions and potential self-identities. Explorations such as these can be desirable to educators trying to give students a critical outlook on identity and perspective. This study presents a novel survey of Discord users from communities with the goal of understanding players’ awareness and experience with these identity-making processes. Nineteen experienced TRPG players responded to the …

Understanding Barriers To Participation In Digital And Hybrid Education: A Grounded Meta-Analysis Of Higher Education And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jarett Dello Buono

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This thesis project overlaps rhetorical approaches to digital communication with emerging data on higher education pedagogies in order to identify barriers to participation and engagement. A grounded theory meta-analysis is utilized to interpret data presented from literature published after the shift to emergency remote learning (ERL) as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data is presented thematically to deconstruct the infrastructural and pedagogical relationships that emerged from the literature on hybrid and remote pedagogies. This project identifies core categories and principles that aid in identifying future areas of inquiry for research on engagement as it relates to broader questions …

Andrew Tate, Matt Walsh, And The Discursive Production And Policing Of Gender, Alan J. Bandyk, Alan J. Bandyk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis utilizes the works of Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir, Frederic Jameson, and Edward Said in a discourse analysis of influencers and writers in the right wing "manosphere." The figures analyzed herein are Andrew Tate and Matt Walsh. Their rhetoric aims to create a discursive woman who embodies traditional notions of gender and sex that de Beauvoir critiqued in 1949. The constant adherence and reference to a mythical past exhibits ways of thinking that coincide perfectly with Jameson's own theoretical work with the term and its inherent false nostalgia. Tate's and Walsh's efforts also fall into discursive attempts at …

“Fear Of A ‘Scientific-Technological Elite:’ Contemporary Concerns In Light Of Eisenhower’S Initial Conception –A Useful Heuristic Or Obfuscating Rhetorical Device?”, Michael Schaefer

University Libraries Publications

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s January 17, 1961 farewell address to the nation is mostly widely known for the former president’s warning of “the unwarranted influence…[of] the military-industrial complex” (hereafter MIC). However, a “less-widely known, seldom quoted, and often poorly understood”– one could add academically under-analyzed - of Eisenhower’s critical phrases from the same speech is “the danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite (hereafter “STE”).”1 This phrase has regained salience in the United States over last few years among a sociopolitical community critical of government COVID-19 protocols, Big Tech censorship, and centralized, top-down, …

Using Critical Place-Based Pedagogy To Build A Bridge Between College Students’ Home Literacies And Their Academic Literacies In A Composition Class In West Virginia, Michael Vozniak

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation explores the use of place-based pedagogy as a tool for teaching for transfer in a college composition class in West Virginia. Although existing composition scholarship indicates that themed classes (such as a place-based class) are unlikely to facilitate transfer among the students, this is mostly due to instructors of themed classes not explicitly teaching for transfer. The literature suggests that the most effective way to facilitate transfer is to encourage students to reflect on how what they learned in one situation is similar to and different from what they need to learn in another situation. The aim of …

“Because I Said So”: How National Leaders Use Rhetoric To Frame The Issues Of National Security And The War On Drugs, Saul Valle

History and Political Science | Senior Theses

In the preamble of the 2024 presidential election seasons in both the United States and Mexico, there has been an increase in aggressive outspoken expression by national leaders regarding how to best handle the issue of drugs and drug use across the Western hemisphere. These types of sweeping policies are often credited to President Richard Nixon, who on June 18th, 1971, initiated his “War on Drugs,” a global policy campaign intended to address the production, distribution, and consumption of the illicit drug trade. Existing scholarship on this topic has extensively analyzed the early years of the American war on drugs …

Dress To Impress: New Composition Instructors' Interpretations And Embodiment Of Professionalism As Displayed Through Dress, Jacqueline C. Cano Diaz

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

While previous research in rhetoric and composition investigates how novice composition instructors negotiate the boundaries of professionalism and identity (Dall'Alba; Grouling; Restaino), the role of dress, or "performative strategic attire" (Mckoy), in crafting these teaching personas has not yet been explored. Viewing everyday dress choices through the lens of embodied rhetoric allows for a deeper understanding of the complex decision-making process of choosing what to wear (Woodward). Further, analyzing dress choice through embodied rhetoric showcases how clothing becomes a tool to craft a persona and inhabit an identity or role. Through positioning instructor's self-identity and naming their experiences and influences …

Confronting The Conflation: The Use Of Christian Nationalist Rhetoric At The Insurrection On January 6th, 2021, Sophia Barnes

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This project considers the rhetoric of Christian nationalism on display before, during, and after the insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6^th, 2021. I will show how Christian nationalism on Jan 6^th can be framed using Jenny Edbauer’s ideas of rhetorical ecologies and Thomas Rickert’s ideas of rhetorical ambiance by considering the speakers at the insurrection and a pastor who has been publicly vocal about his motives. Next, I will consider the images used by major media outlets covering the insurrection and how they chose to frame the events visually by considering Kellie Sharp-Hoskins’s ideas …

Sure Imagination: Distinguishing Mnemotechnics From Spatial Mnemonics, Ian Goodrich

West Chester University Master’s Theses

The term “mnemotechnics” has been misinterpreted by scholars due to a lack of a clear and concise definition available for reference. Though there are contemporary scholarship references to mnemotechnics, these references avoid a definition and are often in a context that does not consider how ancient rhetoricians utilized the practice. Without a concise and unified definition, the term mnemotechnics takes on a variety of divergent meanings through different scholarship, preventing a similarity in terms to ideas and obscuring the practice of the rhetoricians who utilized mnemotechnics. In this thesis, the writings of Quintilian, Augustine of Hippo, and the anonymous author …

Great Books: Everyone's Inheritance, Michael Gose

Faculty Books

This book explores the benefits of reading "Great Books," and is virtually unique in detailing what a series of Great Books classes has looked like over the past decades

Menopause In The Public Sphere: The Consciousness-Raising Practices Of Technical And Experiential Experts, Emma J. Murdock

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Menopause is frequently discussed through a biomedical lens, which stresses technical language and knowledge, yet emerging in popular culture is experiential experts sharing how they feel about menopause. This paper analyses Michelle Obama's podcast episode titled “What Your Mother Never Told You” (2022) featuring Dr. Sharon Malone, a medical doctor and menopause experiential expert. Using consciousness-raising and the spheres of argumentation, I analyze how the experiential and technical experts of the podcast address and speak about menopause. This paper aims to question how consciousness-raising can reconstruct the understanding of menopause through an experiential-centric lens by placing personal testimony and experiences …

Writing Centers & The Dark Warehouse University: Generative Ai, Three Human Advantages, Joe Essid

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

Institutions are scrambling, at an unaccustomed pace, to adapt to generative artificial intelligence. While justified concerns focus on plagiarism, the nature of student learning, and changes to assignments, recent scholarship has largely ignored the potential for faculty and staff unemployment that may accompany acceptance and deployment of the new technology. As we ponder seismic changes in higher education, one voice should join, indeed lead, campus discussions. Writing center professionals have proven adept at weathering technological changes, budget cuts, administrative big ideas, and professional marginalization for more than half a century. Early on, centers were sometimes dismissed as mere “fix-it shops” …

Decolonization Of The Writing Classroom: Creating Space For Decolonial Theory, Tools, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, And Methods To Improve The Emerging Bilingual Student Experience, Desiree L. Brown

Masters Theses

In this thesis, the author addresses the colonial roots of the secondary writing classroom and the origin of standard academic English which enables strict standardized testing and writing assessment requirements that in-turn incite linguistic violence towards emerging bilingual students. The author frames her study within the framework of April Baker-Bell and Asao B. Inoue through a reflective/reflexive study of her teaching in a ninth grade writing classroom in a primarily Hispanic school district in South Texas, which is assessed by the state of Texas through STAAR. This study seeks to identify instances of linguistic violence being perpetuated in the writing …

Terriers Unleashed, Allison C. Douglass

Student Scholarship

This zine was created in Fall 2023 by the students in English 346: American Political Rhetoric with Dr. Douglass, and it captures their engagement with important issues at Wofford. Often, when we think of “politics,” we are thinking about party politics surrounding systems of state governance. However, this class was interested in politics as a broader category of activities that influence decision-making within communities. Our class asked: What does the Wofford we want to attend look like, and what changes could we advocate for in order to move toward that Wofford? Each student crafted a message intended to influence our …