Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Encounters Of Third Space: A Case Study On Salvadoran Political Art And Identity Interplay, Breanna Delgado

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Third space is an in-between thought space designated for marginalized collectives, allowing multiple recontextualizations of identity interplay. However, Third Space is colonized due to western ideological influences such as criminalization of political art, stunting collective growth. This project serves to question and challenge Salvadoran political art and collective identities through questions such as why political art? Can political art be considered “safe spaces”? and dissecting the process of political art, third space meaning making, and identity interplay. Preserving the collective’s political art serves as a grassroots method of justice, accountability, and collective reparation.

I applying three conceptual frameworks: Bhabha’s (1994) …

Against Despair: Hope As Rhetorical Practice In Chicana Theatre, Esperanza Arreola

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis argues that Chicana theatre functions as survival pedagogy—a rhetorical practice that teaches communities to name structural violence, transform bodily trauma into collective power, and rehearse liberation as a precondition for enacting it. Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s concept of literature as “equipment for living,” Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, and Cynthia M. Sheard’s reconceptualization of epideictic rhetoric as community formation, I analyze three plays that exemplify this pedagogy: Cherríe Moraga’s Heroes and Saints (1992) and The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea (2001), and Josefina López’s Real Women Have Curves (1990).

These works address distinct but interlocking forms of …

The Masc Of Masculinity: Multimodal Analysis Of Contemporary Punk Music, James L. Stanfield Iii

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis establishes a multi-genre framework of various theories from different academic fields that is then used to view the multimodal elements of punk and hardcore music performances. The analyses are tailored towards the dissection of traditional masculinity with the goal of constructing masculine avatars that are prosocial and moral. Reworking traditional masculinity is a portion of the larger fight for social reform that is taken up within the field of the humanities. Existing critical approaches to masculinity often establish the need for a rewriting of normative masculinity in society but often do not provide methods for such a rewriting. …

The Hate U Give As Counternarrative: A Rhetorical Site Of Competing Frames & The Disruption Of Dominant Narratives Through Counter-Storytelling & Homing, Jackeline Camacho

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Angie Thomas’s novel, The Hate U Give, is an African American Young Adult novel (AAYA) that captures the violence and devastating effects of police brutality and the gruesome rhetorical strategies that the dominant public sphere uses to criminalize, regulate, and dehumanize Black Americans. In this paper, I use the theoretical framework of counter-storytelling, the theoretical concept of homing, and the rhetorical strategy of framing, to analyze how Thomas exposes the ways in which the dominant public sphere silences, excludes, and discredits the voices and experiences of Black people to give readers access to the dominant public sphere in order …

Language Ideologies In First Year Composition Textbooks, Joanna Clevenger

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis examines how standard language ideologies are perpetuated in the five most frequently assigned first year composition textbooks from four higher education institutions in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Standard language ideologies position one variation of a language as superior, correct, appropriate and the normal variation of a language which everyone should be able to speak. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, the five textbooks were analyzed in order to uncover the embedded power and hegemony over women, people of color, and those from a lower socioeconomic status which are prevalent throughout society because they are unchallenged and widely accepted as the …

Visual Rhetoric And The English Careers Website, Ifeoma C. Oforah

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

We live in a fast-paced, visually-saturated 21st-century world where people want to access the latest information as quickly and conveniently as possible. Images play a role in efficient communication because they can convey concepts that words alone cannot. The pairing of visual content with written text is ubiquitous in everyday communication. Visual content functions to supplement and complement the written word, further engaging the audience and creating a thorough understanding. The persuasiveness of visual content cannot be ignored. This thesis analyzes the pictorial elections I made as an intern for the English Department using the concepts I gleaned from researching …

Oration And Theater In The American Revolution: Equivalent Influences Or Separate Spheres, Deborah Zuk

History in the Making

During the American Revolution (1775–1783) public speaking and the theater were an important part of politics and society. However, the two mediums were viewed differently. Oration was a valued skill, while acting was scorned and even outlawed. This paper argues that both aspects of society were equally crucial to the American Revolution. They were both taught and trained in similar ways and used to push political agendas. This article examines the manuals and history of both oration and the theater and how their influences touch upon all levels of society. It concludes that oration and acting are equal in their …

From Fast Fashion To Sustainable Slow Fashion, Isabel Agatha Millward-Pena

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to express a need for sustainability within the fast fashion industry, in the form of cultural movement that acts as alternative to the current means of production, consumption, and philosophies. Sustainability within current popular discourses is often human-centered and lacking authenticity, thus I aim to highlight an alternative that is opposite of that. In doing such, I bring to light the negative effects of the industry through a case study on the fast fashion company SHEIN, who claim to be making sustainable efforts. I analyzed SHEIN’s 2021 Sustainability and Social Impact Report (SSIR), focusing …

Shopping For A Cause: Social Influencers, Performative Allyship, And The Commodification Of Activism, Emily Mckellar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Since the early 2010s, social media has been a powerful tool for protestors and activists throughout the world. In times of crisis and political uprisings, users have pulled out their phones and taken to platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and, more recently, Instagram, to capture “the revolution” in real time. Although originally intended for networking purposes, social media has provided people with a digital space to share their stories, disseminate resources, and broadcast live, allowing them to share their efforts with millions.

While social media has helped assemble protests, amplify marginalized voices, and educate the public, it has also become a …

Breaking Down The Gendered Barriers In Critical Pedagogy, Tonianne Erickson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Critical pedagogy is a teaching philosophy that guides students to question dominant discourses and the status quo, encouraging them to reflect on the part they play in these discourses. Since critical pedagogy deals with critical consciousness and sociopolitical topics, teachers who engage in this teaching philosophy are expected to exert some power in the classroom in order for students to get to that place of critical consciousness or personal growth. However, when female-identifying teachers use their power to embody critical pedagogy in the classroom, they are often met with resistance from students and fellow colleagues, rendering them unable to effectively …

Exploring The Rhetorical Power Of Speculative Fiction Through Jewelle Gomez’S The Gilda Stories And Octavia Butler’S Fledgling, Monique Dixon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

There are apparent similarities between Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories and Octavia Butler’s Fledgling. However, this thesis will demonstrate that they share more than similar subject matter and yet differ in substantial ways. Utilizing Black feminist theory and alternative rhetoric this thesis examines how Gomez and Butler harness the potential of speculative fiction to critique the world around them and imagine an alternative world for those who are intersectionally marginalized.

Depressed & Dis-Eased: Storytelling, Melancholia And The Rhetorical Affordances Of Affect, Carlee Franklin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Because racial oppression is often internalized, this thesis examines literature written by POC about protagonists of color struggling with depression. The pieces are Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha, Haruki Murakami’s “Tony Takitani,” and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Using literary concepts informed by Black feminist theory, decolonial theory, and affect studies, as well as rhetorical frameworks of silence and listening, this thesis attempts to better understand how the relationship between depression and racial oppression work to color the life expectancy and perspectives of depressed people of color

Death Positivity: A New Genre Of Death And The Genre Function Of Memento Mori, Melony Elsie Del Real

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This article explores Caitlin Doughty’s “death positivity” as an evolved form of the medieval memento mori, and how this medieval genre serves as a genre function for current day thanatophobic audiences. This is specifically done by analyzing Doughty’s book titled Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, as well as some of her other death positivity mediums. By modeling her rhetoric of death positivity after memento mori, Doughty can effectively deliver her anti-death fearing message to the very audiences that fear death.

Furthermore, analyzing Doughty’s rhetoric as operating within the genre function, a concept put forth by Anis Bawarshi, …

Providing Clear Directions And Explanations, Carol Damgen, Carol L. Damgen

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

Giving students an opportunity to do group work in a Public Speaking course allows for an exchange of ideas from various points of view. This activity based on Persuasive Speech can further the students understanding of the assignment in a safe collective.

Working as a team develops strong foundations from which to build a powerful argument based not only on value but factual claims. The outcome of this group activity encourages the steps of building a problem/solution organizational pattern presentation.

The hope of this assessment is to scaffold into a solo presentation building from what the learner has employed from …

Utilizing Visual Rhetoric: A New Approach To Comics, Superheroes, And Red Suns, Tabitha Rose-Ann Zarate

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Comics and graphic texts require complex engagement from readers, engagement that relies on a developed understanding of text and image, and how they interact to create meaning. There are several theories about how readers engage with comics, many from comic creators themselves, and some from scholars in literature and composition. This project introduces an approach to comics utilizing visual rhetoric, which reconsiders the stricter text/image dynamics often conceptualized in Comics Studies, includes the reader as creator, and explores comics as collaboratively created texts. This approach is applied to Superman: Red Son, a popular text that focuses in on Superman, …

Writing Intensive In The Major: Literature, Laura Quinn

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

The goal of this course is for students within the major of Literature to study the kind of academic writing that happens in the field through investigation of various scholarly journals, articles within those journals, the kinds of motivating questions authors in the field work from, rhetorical moves specific to the field, and the like. Students will begin by looking at and rhetorically analyzing published work so that they may consider what it means to actively participate in scholarly conversations through writing. This is a Composition course, so the content of the course uses Composition theory and practices as a …

Cultivating Uncertainty Through A Multimodal Perspective On Process To Encourage Transfer, Ariel Zepeda

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis considers the ways in which a multimodal approach to teaching writing process can help students better understand the choices available as they navigate first-year writing and beyond. Such an approach destabilizes their understanding of what counts as writing, beyond the strictly text-based practices they may normally associate with writing. This destabilization emphasizes the uncertainty of writing as a productive frame of mind, as it encourages a more critical approach for students as they develop and adapt their writing processes. A multimodal perspective on writing process encourages a more proactive approach to students’ development of a repertoire of writing …

Banksy, Rhetoric, And Revolution, Derek Tanios Imad Mkhaiel

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis examines the projects outlined by the Situationist philosophers and their impact on revolutionizing consciousness. Alongside of this examination this thesis demonstrates how the appropriate rhetorical means in conjunction with street art—specifically the work of Banksy—may lead to the successful implementation and execution of the Situationist's projects. This thesis examines the concept of the spectacle as developed by the Situationists as its object of critique and the concepts of culture, unitary urbanism, psychogeography, détournement and dérive as the framework in which the spectacle can be successfully critiqued in order to foster a more critical consciousness. In addition to this …

Embodied Narratives In Video Games: The Stories We Write As We Play, Patrick John Harrington Sichter

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nature of narrative in video games, and how it can be applied to the contemporary classroom to help teach literature and composition. Specifically, it is concerned with the idea of embodiment in video games. First proposed by theorist James Gee, embodiment is a word describing the phenomenon wherein a player inhabits the character that s/he plays. This article takes the idea of embodiment a step further, by introducing the idea of the embodied narrative, the idea that players do not only embody their characters, but those characters’ stories as well, and are composing unique, personal …

Capitalist Rhetoric And The Redirection Of Power Through Metaphor In Reviews Of Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu Films, Isidro Zepeda

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Treating the concept of culture as a heuristic allows us to analyze multiple contexts involving culture as continuously changing with or without exterior contact. The productions from such system have the potential to develop identities through ideological materials produced by specialized rhetoric. This paper then focuses on how figurative language and structure affect the ways in which rhetoric, ideology, and identity are formed within the context of film reviews. In particular, I analyze reviews from the films Birdman and The Revenant, both directed by Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu, to detail how the use of metaphors influences the production of rhetoric. …

Celebrities, Drinks, And Drugs: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Celebrity Substance Abuse As Portrayed In The New York Times, Brent John Austin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study is an examination of the ideologies present in celebrity substance abuse news stories in The New York Times online from December 2012 to December 2013. I analyzed news stories by employing a critical discourse analysis to determine the dominant discourses in celebrity substance abuse news articles. Drawing from cultivation and framing theories, celebrity substance abuse stories in The New York Times are presented in a limited, individual fashion with relatively little effort when it comes to recovery. Rather than treating substance abuse as a serious social issue and a medical condition, it is presented as an individual, moral …

Hybrid Identities In Radio Discourse, Francisco Javier Aguirre

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this thesis was to conduct a discourse analysis of conversational data from a radio station program in Southern California to see if the speakers' language displays hybridity theory. The radio program in question is unique because all speakers including the deejays and call in listeners do not exclusively speak English or Spanish but codemix or alternate between English and Spanish (Spanglish hereafter) during on-air conversations.

Performing Hegemonic Masculinity: The Rhetorical Spectacle Of Mixed Martial Arts, Allison Marie Mark

Theses Digitization Project

This project explains the sport of mixed martial arts and provides a theoretical foundation for rhetorical analysis of hegemonic masculinity in the sport. The influence of mixed martial arts on society is pervasive. Any values produced by the sport echo in the community, which crosses into the rest of society.

Resisting The "Sound Of Muzak": Alienating Effects In Conceptual Progressive Music, Bryan Michael Mcculley-Mendoza

Theses Digitization Project

This study was to showed how popular music is used to create passive consumers driven by a need for instant gratification, rather than objective, active listeners. It then discusses how "conceptual progressive music", demonstrated my Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd rebels against this mass culture nature.

The Internet, Anonymous, And Our Public Identities Recreating Democracy, Leslie Anne Hutchinson

Theses Digitization Project

This study discusses the pursuit of understanding how the discursive construction of the internet affects individuals, identities, and democracy. it also discusses the internet within theoretical positions on its history, the public sphere, and revolutionary politics. Western governments have created legislation regulating the internet for democratic purposes, and this study examines how different and often contrasting views of democracy have shaped the way those of us connected to the internet can speak about it. The Anonymous identity, articulates one such contrast. Anonymous constructs an alternative, Internet identity-one stemming from the identity of the hacker. Policies targeted at stopping hackers and …

Galton To Himmler: An Archeology Of Eugenics Discourse, Jeffery Logan Clark

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project is to trace interdiscursive and intertextual relations between ancient and modern social discourses that allow and constitute Francis Galton's eugenics discourse, and how Francis Galton's eugenics discourse effects change in other social discourses of the twentieth century.

A Secret Cunning In The Fens: Subversive Female Identity And The Plight Of Grendel's Mother, Candice Rae Sequine Roark

Theses Digitization Project

Readings built upon the foundation of traditional gender studies and structural binaries have consistently influenced how scholars understand female identity in Early Medieval Germanic texts. This thesis endeavors to dismantle these traditional readings and consider ways in which female identity can be reexamined wihin a post-structural framework.

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Language Policy In California, Steven Gomez

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis aims to investigate the issues surrounding California's Proposition 227, an important language policy passed in June of 1998 which drastically limited bilingual education. This proposition requires that all public school systems be in English only. Using a method known as Critical Discourse Analysis, this study exposes the underlying bias embedded in the discourse of newspaper articles from: the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, and the Sacramento Bee. After analyzing articles from these newspapers various themes emerged which indicated that each newspaper adhered to either assimilationists' position which is conservative, or a pluralist position which is backed …

Connecting Burke And Levinas: A Counter To The Rhetoric And Ethics Of Expediency, Gerry Joseph Morrow

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis exlores the current rhetoric of expediency in the United States and the expedient ethical perspective it fosters. It argues that the competitive rhetoric of corporate America has not only invaded every sector of society, but that it has caused untold human suffering by promoting what has become a mind-set, an expedient ideology.

A Burkean Analysis Of Jehovah's Witness Apocalyptic Rhetoric, Katherine Elizabeth Kacarab

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis uses principles from Burke's Rhetoric of Identification to examine how apocalyptic prophecies foster and maintain an apocalyptic group identity. Jehovah's Witnesses were used as a sample apocalyptic group because they comprise a group with a heavy textual and symbolic focus on the apocalypse.