Rhetoric Commons^™

The Implications Of Generative-Ai User Prompt Engineering Shaping The Absent Presence Of Latino Women Textual Rhetoric In Llms, Angely C. Suarez Dejesus

ELO (un)supervised 2026

This article examines how large language models (LLMs) generate text that affects underrepresented groups, particularly Latino women, due to limited cultural, contextual, and abstraction training rooted in biases. The research draws on Brock’s (2018) CTDA theory, White et al.’s (2023) prompt engineering framework, Klein’s (2015) computational spatiality, and Anzaldua’s (1987) concepts of cultural, emotional, and gendered borderlands to analyze the outputs. Using narrative prompt experiments, Chat GPT 3.5, 5, Claude AI, Gemini, and Microsoft Co-Pilot produced changes in their textual outputs as evidence of further algorithmic designs. Nevertheless, continual biases embedded in the algorithms’ linguistic representation and misrepresentation through the …

Connected/Disconnected, Emery Beckman

ELO (un)supervised 2026

With the rise of AI, scholars are grappling with how it fits into their field and determining how authorship plays a role in the assistance of these tools. I argue that AI can be deemed a digital companion to creative and interactive design. Anthropic has recently launched Claude Code, a coding assistant for various projects. This talk explores how agentic AI can offer digital assistance while advocating for human thought to remain at the forefront. This talk will analyze and demo an interactive site and explore a collection of AI-assisted poems built alongside Claude Code titled "Connected/Disconnected." It will explore …

Post-Truth Gaming: Fictional Pasts And Constitutive Rhetoric In Video Game Nostalgia, Hunter Bishop

All NMU Master's Theses

What happens when we become nostalgic for experiences we never had? How do video game companies impact what we are nostalgic for? What might a fictional nostalgia look like, and how can it help us better understand the role of nostalgia in Western culture? These are the central questions that this thesis seeks to answer. As seen in the United States’ current cultural and political infatuation with the past, nostalgia has become a dominant rhetorical strategy. Nostalgia is especially prevalent in the medium of video games, where a steady stream of remakes, remasters, and rereleases attempts to repurpose the past …

Documenting Sustainable Social Media Workflows: Supporting Student Professionalization In Faculty-Student Teams, Jenny Rissen

Master's Projects

This capstone project, Documenting Sustainable Social Media Workflows: Supporting Student Professionalization in Faculty-Student Teams, examines how departmental social media teams serve as informal training grounds where students build professional identities through collaborative, often undocumented communication work (Buck; Leon & Pigg). Addressing writing studies concerns about experiential learning gaps (McNabb; Carr et al.), the project creates a handbook offering practical guidance for onboarding, workflow continuity, accessibility, and ethical social media practices. It shows how mentorship and structured documentation turn everyday digital work into meaningful professional development. Situated in technical communication and rhetoric, the project demonstrates how social media teams help …

Reenvisioning Identities That Precede Us: “Body Acknowledgement” As Social Justice Practice Within A Communication Ethics Course Redesign, Wendy Kz Anderson, Ollivia Webster, Nicole Yang, Cass Bryant, Taylor Herr

Feminist Pedagogy

We infuse this conversation of “body neutrality” through social justice responsiveness (compassion, equity, and accountability of body/presence privilege) by specifically attending to intersections of race, gender, and body mindset built into our identities. In reimagining the term “body-neutrality” through identity engagement, we introduce the term “body acknowledgment” as an active interpretative state. As a co-authored pedagogical “co-conspiring” for racial justice (Houdek and Ore, 2021, p. 92), we (instructor, teaching assistants, and previous students) offered a course redesign centering social justice strategies to address the following question: How can dialogue about intersectional communication work toward redesigning learning with difference and develop …

Zombie-Auras: Genai And Hybrid Text Production, Joshua Nieubuurt

English Faculty Publications

This paper explores the iterative evolutions of textual production and their impact on the “aura” of texts, as conceptualized by Walter Benjamin. The study identifies three key phases of textual production: the natural, the mechanized, and the digitized, each progressively displacing the “cult value” of texts. This cult value is lost through increased ease of creation, reproduction, dissemination, and dislocation of creators and audiences in time and space. The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) marks the latest evolution, transforming the “aura” into a memetic “zombie” form—familiar yet opaque, evoking both the sublime and fear. By examining Benjamin’s notion of “aura” …

Curated Bricolage: Questions Of Agency, Accuracy, And Complicity In Munich Holocaust Memorialization, Jamie Downing

Academic Affairs

As the birthplace of the Nazi movement, Munich has long struggled to reckon with its legacy from World War II and the Holocaust. While some museums in Munich document the rise of the Nazis, the war, and the Holocaust, unlike other European cities, Munich lacks a centralized Holocaust museum or memorial. Instead, across the city there are dozens of mini-monuments—plaques, sculptures, cobblestone markings—that reference different figures and events related to Munich's Nazi history. These sites comprise a decentralized, bricolage approach to memorialization, leaving individuals to happen upon these mini-memorials and make sense of them without much context.

While this approach …

Duae Cypriani Soarez Praefationes Ad Opus De Arte Rhetorica Libri Tres Commentariis Rhetoricis Instructae, Marcus Porto

Theses and Dissertations--Modern and Classical Languages, Literature and Cultures

De Arte Rhetorica Libri Tres (1562) written by Cyprian Soarez (1524-1593), priest and teacher of the Society of Jesus, was the standard rhetorical manual in the Ratio Studiorum and thus was used for over two centuries in Jesuit colleges throughout the world. Concerned that young students of Latin were not yet ready for the major rhetorical texts of antiquity, such as Cicero’s and Quintilian’s, Soarez wrote this manual as a digest of ancient rhetoric to the beginner. This thesis uses the rhetorical precepts found in Cyprian’s work to analyze the work’s own two prefaces. Thus, it aims at providing …

Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition: Unpacking Gender Roles In Social Media Performances Of "The Good Life", Lauren Mar

Scripps Senior Theses

What do JD Vance, tradwife influencers, and the “sprinkle sprinkle” movement have in common? They all have something to do with the increasing popularity of an apparent return to traditional gender roles. This thesis is an intersectional investigation of women’s gender roles in relation to class and race as they appear in different performances of “the good life” on social media. Through a series of personal essays, this thesis explores how these media examples represent a deeper political unhappiness with present conditions. This thesis takes the time to unpack the different sides of discourse surrounding each subject, and counters the …

Ai And Advocacy: Maximizing Potential, Minimizing Risk, Matthew Salzano, Nicholas Fung, Ada Lin, Sofia Marchetta, Faith Colombo, Kaylah Davis, John Flynn, Carlos Fuentes, Fion Li, Malar Paavi Muthukumaran, Angelica Paramoshin, Chrisanne Pearce, Vianney Ramos, Charles St. Hilaire, Xi Zheng, Wei Zhuang

School of Communication and Journalism Faculty Publications

New Generative AI tools are revolutionizing writing and communication. This report focuses on AI and advocacy, the act of influencing public policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions. This report identifies three major opportunities and accompanying risks, plus one strong recommendation for advocates considering using AI. We argue that AI can be useful for advocates, but they must be careful to center human judgment and avoid risks that could distract from their important work or even contribute to societal harms.

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

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Subversive Cartography: Teaching Mary Prince And Saidiya Hartman, Carolina Hinojosa

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

This chapter utilizes Hartman’s methodology of retrieval to create a map1 in StoryMap JS2 (“the map” or “this map”) that analyzes multiple geographic spaces in The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave Narrative and Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. The map is an archive or a witness to some of the geographical spaces Mary Prince lived (and was sold) as an enslaved woman seeking freedom and the places in which Saidiya Hartman has conducted research or visited in Ghana as a “free” woman. Layering the past over present creates a …

John O'Malley As A Guide For Eloquentia Perfecta, Community-Engaged Work, And Graduate Education, Allen Brizee, Stephanie Hurter Brizee, Colten Biro, Meha Gupta

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

John O’Malley, S.J., was primarily a Jesuit and Catholic historian. But to scholars in writing studies, his work is illuminative due to his rhetorical analysis of church documents and his discussion of eloquentia perfecta when examining Jesuit education. More recently, in works like “’Not for Ourselves Alone,” he stresses the importance of Jesuit education focusing on the betterment of others inside and outside of the academy. During an interview conducted four months before his death, O’Malley restated the necessity of Jesuit education including writing and vita activa, that is, active civic life. In this article, we pay tribute to …

Reimagining The Humanistic Tradition: Using Isocratic Philosophy, Ignatian Pedagogy, And Civic Engagement To Journey With Youth And Walk With The Excluded, Allen Brizee

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

The world is in a perilous place. Challenged by zealots, autocrats, a pandemic, and now a war in Europe, elected officials and their constituents no longer exchange ideas in a functioning public sphere, once a hallmark of the humanistic tradition. The timeliness of the Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs), therefore, is profound as they provide beacons of light for dark times. In this article, I trace Isocratic philosophy through Ignatian pedagogy and contemporary civic engagement to argue that we can use these three models to help us Journey with Youth and Walk with the Excluded. Key to this approach is a …

Isocrates's Place In Postmodern Advertising, Christopher Barkley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study in communication and rhetoric seeks to ascertain constructive applications for distinct advertising practices by examining Isocrates’s work and place in postmodern advertising. The focus uses 5 principles known to Isocrates which are: 1) commonwealths of households, 2) integration of reputation, elegance, substance and style, 3) education and public discourse, 4) phronesis and praxis, and 5) truth and verisimilitude. These 5 principles can form a constructive and practical advertising approach. This study is important. It examines Isocrates through the lens of advertising and extends the research done about him by leading Isocrates scholars who have looked primarily at his …

The Brain Scan As Ideograph, Paige Welsh

English (MA) Theses

Medical imaging devices have enabled doctors to render images of the brain without cutting into the body. These images are colloquially called “brain scans.” Through journalism and mass dissemination online, brain scans have become an example of Michael Calvin McGee’s “ideograph,” a language term that subtly takes on outsized political and symbolic meaning to enforce state power. In conversation with theories of new materialism, I situate the brain scan as an ideograph within Jenny Edbauer’s model of rhetorical ecologies. The rhetorical force of the brain scan comes out of a collision between René Descarte’s mind/body dualism, the medical model of …

Rethinking Data: Algorithms, Black Boxes, And Bias Through The Data Atm, Joshua Nieubuurt

English Faculty Publications

For nearly all of history things, creatures, and people came and went; leaving little, if anything, behind in their wake. Life in the 21st century has changed this natural pattern of existence, blurring the lines of what it is (and what it means) to dwell within the world. Physical things and people are now existing simultaneously in the digital realms as doppelgängers composed of coded data. Now, things and people are both embodied and disembodied: simultaneously. Data, individual and collective, pours into the digital oceans; a tumultuous sea of [dis]embodied-being translated into the language of electricity and silicon. The forms …

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 …

Matthew Brown Fellowship Brochure, Matthew Brown

Brown, Matthew, 1776-1853

In the early 2000s, the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, Pennsylvania established the Matthew Brown Fellowship. In the words of this informational brochure, the Fellowship is a "college-aged ministry program" that seeks to "increase this church's involvement with its oldest friend, the College, and to extend its ministry...to meet the growing needs throughout the greater Washington Community."

01. Finding Aid To The Physical Collection, Robert H. Ellison, Elizabeth James

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This document follows the same format as Marshall's other Guides to Manuscript Collections. It includes a biographical note, the "scope and content" of the archive, and other information, along with a complete listing of the contents of each of the 31 boxes on the shelves.

07. Songs, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes his work as a song writer and publisher: 75 stand-alone songs, approximately 40 booklets of his songs, and 18 books he published with his own songs and those of other artists. There are also approximately 420 song books (336 unique titles) from other publishers, 23 of which contain at least one of Cummings' songs. Information about each of these songs--295 in all--is provided in the User Guide.

All of these songs, along with the relevant front- and backmatter in the books, are posted here as a single PDF. It is nearly 140 MB; to make …

08. Correspondence, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 39 complete or partial letters to or from Cummings; many of his drafts are typed on the back of his sermon manuscripts. All of the letters are posted here as a single PDF; information about each one is provided in the User Guide.

13. Poems Not By Cummings, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 26 poems that were among the donated materials but turned out to be definitely or probably not by Cummings. They are posted here as a single PDF; information about each poem, including authorship when available, is provided in the User Guide.

06. Poems, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes approximately 45 stand-alone poems, 9 booklets of poems, and An Earth Wayfarer, a 111-page spiral-bound book. Everything is posted here as a single PDF; information about individual poems, including each selection in the booklets and Earth Wayfarer, is provided in the User Guide.

09. Literary And Bible Training School, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes items pertaining to his time at the Literary and Bible Training School (now Trevecca Nazarene University) in Nashville, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1909. There are examination papers he wrote on homiletics and theology, along with the catalog for the 1909-10 academic year. All items are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.

04. Radio Addresses, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 35 addresses delivered over the radio. Most aired on station WMON in Montgomery, West Virginia; a few were broadcast over WLW in Cincinnati. They are posted here as a single PDF, and combined with the sermons in a single tab in the User Guide.

12. Newspaper Articles By And About Cummings And His Family, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes some 120 newspaper clippings by and about Cummings and his family; many of Cummings' pieces are short poems published as Corner Couplets or maxims from "Josh Hayseed." All of the clippings are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.

10. Mccrum Slavonic Training School, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 2 publications by the McCrum Slavonic Training School in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. They date to 1912, the year Mary Kacmar graduated from the school, and 1918, the year she and Cummings married. They are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.

05. Newspaper Columns, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 66 columns written for various newspapers. They were published under 4 headlines: "Clergyman Chatter," "Our Weekly Message," "Our Weekly Visit," and "The Parson Writes." In some of the clippings, only the words "Our Weekly" are visible, so we cannot be sure which category they belong to.

All 66 columns are posted here as s single PDF. There are also supplemental files for "Clergyman Chatter," "Our Weekly Message/Visit," and "The Parson Writes."

The columns do not have individual titles, but they often have section headings; for ease of navigation, the first heading in each column is included …

11. Miscellaneous Items, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 34 miscellaneous items, ranging from his drivers licenses to a document entitled "End Alien Control of the United States." All items are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.