Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Let Me Queer My Throat: Queer Rhetorics Of Negotiation: Marriage Equality And Homonormativity, Hillery Glasby

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

“Let Me Queer My Throat: Queer Rhetorics of Negotiation – Marriage Equality and Homonormativity" is a project that grew from personal tensions the author faced while simultaneously reading critical queer critiques of the marriage equality movement and homonormativity and planning her own same-sex wedding. Rather than argue a clear-cut position, the author explores conflicting discourses on same-sex marriage and openly struggles with her multiple subject positions. Blending photography, personal writing, alternative rhetorics, and traditional academic discourse, the author investigates what's at stake with her upcoming same-sex wedding, while remaining conscious of queer politics. This project argues that queer participation in …

Blogging Borders: Transnational Feminist Rhetorics & Global Voices, Jessica Ouellette

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

As more and more digital publics emerge as generative sites for cross-cultural communication and social action, it becomes imperative for us to critically question the ways in which these spaces operate not only as platforms from which to speak, but also as platforms from which to silence. By looking at digital publics through the lens of genre and critical discourse theory, I argue that the dis/empowering and (de)linking of speakers is an intrinsic part of public discourse and one that deserves further scrutiny. Through an analysis of the global feminist blog, Gender Across Borders (GAB), this project questions the ways …

Queer The Tech: Genderfucking And Anti-Consumer Activism In Social Media, Matthew A. Vetter

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

A companion text to a piece of online activist rhetoric, this essay attempts to explain how social media networks and other digital interfaces intercede and influence users' constructions of gender and consumer identity. Gaining awareness of the influence networks have over our lives, should empower users to appropriate and subvert those networks for alterior agendas. This essay, and the activism it introduces, demonstrates an appropriation of Pinterest, a "pinboard-style" social media network, for the purposes of suberting and exposing its typical hetero-normatie and pro-consumer practices.  Â

Playing With Plagiarism: Remixing What Sticks, Dustin Edwards

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Creator's Statement: What is plagiarism shown? What does it look like? What does it do? And whom does it affect? In this project, I explore -- and provide possible answers to -- these questions by remixing popular representations of plagiarism. This work presents one possible activist intervention that teachers can take when they talk about the culturally burdened concept of plagiarism. I choose to play with plagiarism and I invite others to do the same. Following (counter)public sphere theorist Michael Warner, circulation itself can be a powerful vehicle for change. Although my audience for my argument is quite targeted (writing …

Political Third Parties' Representation In"The Big Three": 24-Hour Cable News Networks' Ideological Construction Of The American Political Duopoly, William Breault

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis conducts content and functional analyses to investigate the amount and functions of third-party mentions in 24-hour cable news networks. Additionally, this thesis applies framing tactics, ideographs, and other rhetorical theory to examine strategies utilized to ideologically construct cognitions regarding the current American political duopoly.

To Thine Own Self Be Cruel: An Analysis Of The Use Of Self-Deprecating Humor As A Rhetorical Strategy By Figures In Positions Of Authority, Brian Sorenson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the use of self-deprecating humor as a rhetorical strategy by figures in positions of authority. A close textual analysis is performed on eight White House Correspondents' Dinner speeches by U.S. presidents. Two speeches are analyzed from each of the four chosen presidents. The presidents whose respective uses of self-deprecating humor will be analyzed are Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

Crime And Poverty In Detroit: A Cross-Referential Critical Analysis Of Ideographs And Framing, Jacob Jerome Nickell

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the relationship between crime and poverty is rhetorically constructed within the news media. To this end, I investigate the content of twelve news articles, published online, that offered coverage of crime in the city of Detroit, Michigan. I employ three methods in my criticism of these texts: ideographic analysis, critical framing analysis, and an approach that considers ideographs and framings elements to be rhetorical constructions that function together. In each phase of my analysis, I developed ideological themes from concepts emerging from the texts. I then approached my discussion of these findings from a perspective of …

Fashioning A Rhetoric Of Style: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Urban Street Style Representations In New York City, Amber Pineda

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how urban street styles are used rhetorically within local boroughs in New York City as a form of resistance to the dominant fashion industry that dictates what is "in fashion" through media. A total of fifteen video blogs developed by The New York Times were analyzed, each containing a representation of one of the five boroughs of New York City: Staten Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens. The analysis identified themes of a rhetoric of style, consisting of primacy of text, imaginary communities, aesthetic rationales, market contexts, and stylistic homologies. These themes were then analyzed by drawing …

Ritualized Rhetoric And Historical Memory In German Foreign And Security Policy, Sara A. Hoff

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Recent changes in German foreign policy behavior have led to questions about Germany's European vocation. At the center of this inquiry is Germany's struggle to resolve the intersection between historical memory and present day international responsibility, especially in cases involving the use of force. This dissertation examines how and when historical memory has influenced, shaped, and informed contemporary German foreign and security policy and rhetoric by examining cases within two policy areas: out of area operations and nuclear nonproliferation. Focusing on the case of Libya, this dissertation also considers the cases of Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Nuclear nonproliferation, a global …

Consuming Food Memoirs: Identity, Experience, Legitimization As Rhetorical Sustenance, Kayla Bruce

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a rhetorical analysis of nonfiction food texts as representative of a facet of life writing texts, and as they are currently viewed and used by readers both within and outside of the academy. The examination of food texts focuses around Kate Christensen's 2013 food memoir Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites and her food blog, Don't Let It Bring You Down that proceeded and followed the publication of the food memoir. Likewise, author Molly Wizenberg's food blog Orangette preceded the publication of her 2009 food memoir A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen …

Beyond Performance: Rhetoric, Collective Memory, And The Motive Of Imprinting Identity, Brenda M. Grau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reconsiders Maurice Halbwachs' theory of collective memory in terms of rhetoric. My purpose is to examine specifically how fading generations conform the present to the past as they fight to maintain and defend their collective identities. Although rhetoric and memory studies have often focused on the complex matters of national collectives, Halbwachs was also concerned with the individual and his or her interaction among those groups that matter in everyday living and memory's role in generational shifts that slowly transform culture. Halbwachs' theory helps determine exactly how attempts at conflict resolution are sometimes guarded defenses against threats to …

Moore Of Feminine Style: A Rhetorical Examination Of "Wednesdays With Beth", Terrie Meeks

Masters Theses

Beth Moore is a best-selling author of books and Bible studies, a speaker to crowds that fill places like the Georgia Super Dome, as well as an international speaker, a radio and television personality, and she is achieving this milestone as a woman, in a world lit with male stars. Through all of these venues it is estimated that Moore speaks to hundreds of thousands of people each year. One of Moore's most recent ventures is speaking on Life Today with James and Betty Robison. Each week features an episode of "Wednesdays with Beth." Using Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's theory of …

Integrating Reading And Writing For Florida's Esol Program, George Douglas Mcarthur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This thesis examines an incongruity that exists within Florida's ESOL program. While the curriculum standards direct teachers to "develop and integrate" skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing, student promotions to higher fluency levels are based solely on reading assessments. Listening assessments are also required to "determine instructional needs," but writing assessments are not required and, in most cases, not given. As a result, reading is prioritized, writing is subordinated, the connection between the two skills is broken, and the mutual benefits of integration are lost.

Studies conducted during the last 50 years have consistently shown that the integration …

Engaging Engagement: Framing The Civic Education Movement In Higher Education, Chad Woolard

Theses and Dissertations

Civic education in higher education is housed in various types of institutions (i.e. community colleges, four year universities, public and private institutions), institutional offices, academic departments, and larger, cross-campus initiatives and organizations. Civic education programs promote numerous activities to foster student engagement both inside and outside the classroom. Many in higher education have embraced the civic education movement; however, as with other social movements, the civic education movement is still a contested area. Defining civic education (i.e. civic engagement, service learning, political engagement, community engagement, etc.) becomes problematic because there seems to be as many terms for civic education as …

Reflections On The Introduction Of Quantitative Assessment In Persuasive Writing Classes, Paul H. Grawe, Robin J. Grawe

Numeracy

If quantitative reasoning is to be a legitimate part of composition curricula, it must be seen as a valuable tool for composition instructors to use in exploring their own subject. Composition instructors must see the relevance of QR not merely to their students in other subject areas but also directly in their literary and rhetorical studies and careers. Here we reflect on a highly successful program of using quantitative techniques in teaching advanced levels of professional rhetoric, namely persuasive speech and writing. We recount our 15-year experience of running an in-class, empirical and progressive experiment in group negotiations, the Legislative …

Generating Law: Learning How To Take Care Of What One Has Started, Thomas D. Eisele

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In this chapter from Living In A Law Transformed: Encounters With The Works Of James Boyd White, Professor Eisele discusses the inspiration provided him by White's writing.

Reporting The Irish Famine In America: Images Of "Suffering Ireland" In The American Press, 1845-1848, James M. Farrell

Communication

This chapter is a study of American newspaper reporting on the Great Irish Famine. The study examines six master narratives that constrained the image of Ireland and the Irish people presented to American readers. Those narrative constraints predisposed Americans to respond with hostility when Irish Famine refugees began to arrive in the United States.

One And Inseparable: The Union And Deliberative Conduct In Webster's "Reply To Hayne.", James M. Farrell

Communication

In Daniel Webster's view, the survival of the Union required not only an orator who could defend the Constitution as he did against Robert Hayne, but one who could embody the spirit of the constitution in deliberative performance. Webster uses his performance in debate not only to assail his opponent, defend New England, and expound on the Constitution, but further to demonstrate with his own oratory the abiding value of decorum, prudence, and eloquence in the national life. Webster becomes the ideal of deliberative performance as he contrasts his own conduct in debate with that of his Southern opponent. Webster’s …

The Child Independence Is Born: James Otis And Writs Of Assistance, James M. Farrell

Communication

This chapter is a reexamination of the Writs of Assistance speech by James Otis. In particular, it is a reconsideration of the evidence upon which rests the historical reputation of Otis’s address. Are the claims by historians who credit Otis with sparking the Revolutionary movement in colonial America warranted or not? That reassessment begins with a detailed review of the nature and function of writs of assistance within the political, legal, and economic environment of colonial Massachusetts. It then turns to an analysis of the legal dispute over writs of assistance in the 1761 trial. From there we will reconstruct …

Tractors And Genres: Knowledge-Making And Identity Formation In An Agricultural Community, Marcy Galbreath

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the history of a small Florida agricultural community over the course of the twentieth century from a rhetorical perspective in order to understand the technological and communicative transitions that governed the development of American agricultural production. By examining archival and oral histories, this research will add to our understandings of how written and oral communications temper the relationships and social situations of an agricultural community, including the knowledge-making and technological adaptation resulting from communications within the community and with outside institutions and entities. Agricultural villages are not isolated entities, but rather sites of multiple rhetorical situations, and …

Image/Text And Text/Image: Reimagining Multimodal Relationships Through Dissociation, Amy K. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations--English

W.J.T. Mitchell has famously noted that we are in the midst of a “pictorial turn,” and images are playing an increasingly important role in digital and multimodal communication. My dissertation addresses the question of how meaning is made when texts and images are united in multimodal arguments. Visual rhetoricians have often attempted to understand text-image arguments by privileging one medium over the other, either using text-based rhetorical principles or developing new image-based theories. I argue that the relationship between the two media is more dynamic, and can be better understood by applying The New Rhetoric’s concept of dissociation, which …

The State Of The Anti-Union Address: A Rhetorical Critique Of Select Service Worker Training Methods, Richard Ries

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is an interdisciplinary master's level thesis that explores links among technical writing, training manuals, surveillance, and anti-union rhetoric used with service workers in select American chains and franchises. Brief histories are provided, including those of technical writing, the rise of unions in America, and how technical writing became inextricably linked with labor. A major shift occurred in the 20th century when workers began interacting less with products and more with the public. The research focuses on training manuals, techniques, and rehearsed dialogues of McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Panera, and Publix, though similar organizations are referenced. Service worker language, …

On Being A Simple Judge: Exploring Rhetorical Citizenship In Aristotelian And Homeric Rhetorics, Mari Lee Mifsud

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

If we want to make the argument that rhetoric matters to citizenship and that the two - rhetoric and citizenship - are mutually benefitted by their exchanges, then we need to deal with this charge of citizens as simpletons that rings through the rhetorical tradition. We need to go to these other places. In juxtaposition with an approach relegating classical conceptions of agency and audience as outdated and over, I wish in this essay to avoid such a negative approach, or perhaps I should say such a "negating" choice. I wish to take being simple as a citizen judge creatively. …

Gauging The Alignment Between School And Work: An Activity Theory Analysis Of Police Report Writing Instruction, Marianna R. Hendricks

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation is based on a fifteen-month study of police report writing instruction at one agency, connecting the curriculum at the training academy, field training, and the needs and expectations of multiple report audiences and users. It draws from Rhetorical Genre Studies (Miller, 1984; Russell, 2009), Activity Theory (Engeström, 2008), and Situated Learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Dias, Freedman, Medway, and Paré, 1999) to explore how novices learn a new genre through activity, and how this is complicated by a transition between school and work outside of a university context. Specifically, it focuses on the role of andragogical (rather than …

The Notion Of Cultural Assimilation Into An American Identity: Abstract Or Concrete?, Julie A. Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Assimilation is believed to be the process immigrants follow to become "American." To be American is to be equal to other Americans in societal, employment, and educational opportunities. But this is not and cannot be an outcome of the assimilation process in the United States. There are multiple definitions and expectations of assimilation; too many to allow a clear outcome. This project addresses the complexity associated with all versions of assimilate, the multiple definitions, processes, and outcomes associated with this term, and demonstrates that there is no concrete resolution to an assimilation process due to the multitude of definitions attached …

Inviting Citizen Designers To Design Learning Management System (Lms) Interfaces For Student Agency In A Cross-Cultural Digital Contact Zone, Rajendra Kumar Panthee

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Inviting Citizen Designers to Design Learning Management System (LMS) Interfaces for Student Agency in a Digital Cross-Cultural Contact Zone assesses how FYC students from periphery cultural and linguistic backgrounds perceive Blackboard Learn and other learning management system (LMS) interfaces. The report of an empirical study shows that the current LMS design does not provide writing students in general and writing students from periphery cultural and linguistic backgrounds in particular an opportunity of a higher-level interactivity with the LMS. The current design neither includes periphery students' cultural and linguistic norms and values, nor does it allow them to affect the existing …

Preaching That Leads To Transformation At The North Street Church Of Christ In Nacogdoches, Texas, Curtis Barbarick

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project to develop a process whereby the sermon would be enhanced for listeners at the North Street Church of Christ in Nacogdoches, Texas, so that preaching would be more effective in leading to transformation. The theology and methodology of John Wesley were utilized as a lens by which to think about and implement this practice.

The intervention involved a six-week session with a focus group that represented a cross-section of the congregation. Participants in this group were asked to engage in a lectio divina exercise on a particular text daily, …

Presidential Rhetoric: From The War On Drugs To The Battle Over Legalization, Manuel Antonio Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis analyzes the rhetoric executed by different presidents in order to sustain the battle against drugs. The war on drugs is one of the longest battles the United States has fought. From its inception under President Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, the war on drugs has become an institutionalized presidential program responsive to public demands for action against the spread of illegal drugs. Over the airwaves, presidential rhetorical overtures on the matter go hand in hand with the drug war on the streets. However, although presidential rhetoric remained largely consistent on combating and criminalizing drugs over much of the …

Rereading Romanticism, Rereading Expressivism: Revising "Voice" Through Wordsworth's Prefaces, Hannah J. Rule

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Veteranness : Representations Of Combat-Related Ptsd In U.S. Popular Visual Media, Diane J. Keranen

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Posttraumatic stress and PTSD are becoming familiar terms to refer to what we often call the invisible wounds of war, yet these are recent additions to a popular discourse in which images of and ideas about combat-affected veterans have long circulated. A legacy of ideas about combat veterans and war trauma thus intersects with more recent clinical information about PTSD to become part of a discourse of visual media that has defined and continues to redefine veteran for popular audiences.

In this dissertation I examine realist combat veteran representations in selected films and other visual media from three periods: …