Rhetoric Commons^™

The "Hatting" Of The Clock: Crafting Juniata's Knitting Community Through Yarn Bombing The Clock Tower, Hannah Bellwoar, Scarlett Berrones

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This piece explores how knitting creates community. We've found that the materiality of knitting, by which we mean the physical making of knitted objects, creates a feeling of community that connects people across physical and digital spaces. We discuss how the authors' personal knitting experiences with a college knitting club and yarn bombing the clock tower on campus relate to theory about the materiality of making knitted things. We argue that crafted rhetorical actions such as the yarn bomb enable knitters and non-knitters to connect more broadly around central community spaces.

Related videos on YouTube:
Connecting through Craft
Juanita College …

The Suicide Survivor's Guide To Crafts, Joshua Adair

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Written as a personal narrative, this essay explores the possibility of crafting as a coping mechanism of mourning by examining the relationship between the author and his mother-in-law after the suicide of his partner. Ultimately refusing to valorize crafting as a transformative or life-saving endeavor while still acknowledging its worth as a mode of living in times of trauma and otherwise, the author engages dark humor and sarcasm to look at how we craft our lives despite terrible loss.

Nothing Unlucky About This 13, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

Death: The End We All Have To Face(Book), Christine Martorana

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

When my friend Aaron unexpectedly died several years ago, I gained firsthand experience with a growing online phenomenon: mourners turning to online spaces following the death of a loved one. In what follows, I present details from Aaron's Facebook page in order to illustrate two specific observations: 1) Digital technologies are reconfiguring the permanence of death, inviting the living to recreate the deceased as a heavenly intermediary, and 2) this continued virtual existence of the deceased alongside the constant accessibility of digital technologies is opening a space for death-related egocentrism. As I have observed Aaron's wall over the past several …

Designs Of Meaning: Tools For Digital Storytellers, Aimée Knight, Austin Starin

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

As the creation of digital texts flourishes in and out of the classroom, new strategies for composition are needed. Digital stories are multimodal by nature; they communicate meaning through multiple media, especially the combination of text, audio, image, animation, video, and interactive content forms.

Kress, Van Leeuwen, Wysocki, Ball and other multimodal scholars believe that as we see writing transition to the "logic" of the senses, new spaces and new approaches are necessary. DeVoss & Selfe (2002) argue for new "rhetorical positionings" for teachers of writing in digital environments to "help students explore, develop, and communicate more effectively within online …

Life In Movie Stills: Persona Making In "Learning From Bruce Lee: Pedagogy And Political Correctness In Martial Arts Cinema", Michael Soares

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

How much influence does the cinema of our youth shape persona? When I was thirteen, the personas of myself and my friends were profoundly shaped by the discovery of Tae Kwon Do. Bolstered by hit "karate" films of the 1980's, in our minds we were ninja warriors and martial arts champions. Nearly thirty years later, the memories retained are an articulation of not only of my Tae Kwon Do experience, but the peripheral imagery generated by the 1980's karate media, including martial arts films. These articulated images, imagined as film stills, create for many of us what Meaghan Morris describes …

Dottie And Me: Constructing Childless-By-Choice Alternative Rhetorics, Courtney Adams Wooten

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Drawing on David L. Wallace's concept of "alternative rhetorics," this essay examines the recent growth of childless-by-choice rhetoric on social media. Analyzing how discourses about parenthood invalidate childless adults and divide parents from childless adults, I argue that the circulation of texts on social media needs to becomes more inclusive of the lives of those who choose to remain childless. Doing so promotes greater discussion about the roles adults can fill and how parenthood has been privileged in our society.

Pleased To Tweet You, Cate Blouke, Paul Muhlhauser

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

"Pleased to Tweet You" is an interactive, personal narrative of Cate's experiences using Twitter at academic conferences, loosely following the narrative structure of a traditional five act play. The article describes and reenacts the ways in which live-tweeting creates a "participatory theatre" for conference-goers, and Cate argues for an ethics of participation around how Twitter is used in these situations. Although the article focuses on academic conferences, the issues addressed -- participation, attention, and performativity -- apply equally to any live-tweeting experience, be it political protests, presidential debates, or the Oscars. Incorporating both real and fabricated tweets related to the …

Letter From The Guest Editors: Putting Our Bodies On The Line: Towards A Capacious Vision Of Digital Activism, Ben Mccorkle, Jason Palmeri

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This is the editors' note to accompany the special issue on digital activism.

#Definerhetoric 2014, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Are you interested in pounds of prestige and a sweet trophy? Â We sure hope so. All you have to do is help us add to the almost four million different definitions of rhetoric we've found. In more words, help us flavor the world with new perspectives on what rhetoric is, isn't, and does, doesn't. Come up with THE BEST definition of rhetoric for 2014 and you'll win a sweet trophy, a gift certificate to Amazon.com, and, well, between 10-20 pounds of prestige.

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 …

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 …

Dispatches From Summer Camp: Literacies Of Suds And Scam, Cori Brewster

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Rhetorical analysis of a collection of kowtowing letters written by summer camp counselors and campers, arguing that they provide a useful window into youth literacy development and conditions that foster socially-engaged, critically literate practice.

10 And Counting..., Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

#Definerhetoric 2013, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

Call For Submissions: The Digital Activism Issue, Ben Mccorkle, Jason Palmeri

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

The Image-World: A Found Comic Poem, Franny Howes

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

The text of this comic is excerpted entirely from Susan Sontag's essay, "The Image World," from her 1977 book On Photography. I was assigned to read and respond to this piece when I attended the Adventure School for Ladies Comics Intensive, an alternative graduate program focused on gender, labor, and the comics industry.Sontag's essay critiques the way contemporary western culture uses photography for "imprisoning reality" and "depersonalizing our relation to the world." Photography creates another reality by the physical impression of light on film: what she calls the "image world." The idea of a separate and additive reality created through …

The 5-Sided Lego, Hanna Barker, Shawn Beaumont

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

The study of rhetoric usually concerns itself with analysis of discourse more clearly identifiable as a text, but often overlooked is how apparently non-textual elements may shape our own personal narratives. However, rhetorical theory can indeed be applied to something like LEGO, that beyond marketing and branding, most people do not immediately consider textual. Ultimately by using the Burkeian pentad as a terministic screen, this project aims to determine how the act of playing with LEGO, and even the LEGO brick itself, serve to construct realities, and how those realities impact our own.

Sisyphus Rolls On: Reframing Women's Ways Of “Making It” In Rhetoric And Composition, Kristin Bivens, Martha Mckay Canter, Kirsti Cole, Violet Dutcher, Morgan Gresham, Luisa Rodriguez-Connal, Eileen Schell

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This is a multi-vocal, multi-institutional piece that examines ways women "make it" in rhetoric and composition. It is in the spirit of being more inclusive that we present our ideas about women's ways of making it in rhetoric and composition. This inclusiveness includes a written transcript of our audio narratives. Humbly, we present our work in this piece after four years of writing and revising in the work spaces we all know so well and offer several glimpses of the work women do as writing teachers. We honor all of the women who teach writing -- those who have made …

Finding Nowhere, Nathan Edwards

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

My audio/visual presentation, Nowhere, was a personal challenge to create a persuasive yet openly-interpretable message through a fully non-narrative presentation, leaving focus purely on the sound design, visual imagery, and the interaction between the two.The presentation and accompanying article explore questions surrounding the ways in which an artistic medium effects how our senses absorb an artistic presentation and how a message is most effectively conveyed.

Two Sound Pieces, Keith Dorwick

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

These two sound works gathered here ("At the Edge of Sleep" and "For Voices, No Longer Human") were assembled out of ordinary, even mundane sounds. In each, I slowed down the tempo of the original sound cues such as a cat eating kibbles or a voice uttering nonsense. Further manipulation of the sounds to make entirely new pieces created abstract sound landscapes, if you will, that take on (I hope) a mythic quality far removed from their original sources. In the case of "For Voices, No Longer Human," Harlot's review process resulted in a whole new (and much stronger) work, …

Sonic Rhetorics: A Mashed-Up Introduction In Sound, Jon Stone, Steph Ceraso

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Welcome to the special-themed Sonic Rhetorics issue of Harlot. Putting this issue together was a thoroughly collaborative process that involved a lot of back and forth with authors about their work, creative visions, and sonic rhetorics. For months we have been sounding out, experimenting with, and synthesizing these pieces until they seemed to hit the right note. So, rather than giving an authoratative summary of individual pieces, we thought it made more sense for contributors to speak (and sound) for themselves--and together. When you press play, you will hear a mashup of the sounds and soundbites from many of this …

Audiobiography: A Sonic Memoir Of The 1960s, John F. Barber

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This essay and its accompanying sound file speak to a personal narrative of the author's life in the 1960s, a time of tremendous social, political, and cultural change. By creating a narrative of his life at the time, sampled from period radio and television reports/programs, the author attempts to recreate the rhetorical context of his life at that time. The desired end result is a personal narrative with a broader appeal. Not a typical radio documentary, however, nor a narrated history, the intent of Sounds of My Life: A sixties radio narrative is instead to remix the medium of its …

Making Meaning In Musical Mixes, Kyle D. Stedman

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

SIDE A

Growing Meanings :: From Arrangement... :: ...To Development :: This Project :: My Mix

SIDE B

Developing Sounds :: Developing Expectations :: Digital Tools :: Developing Moods :: Transitions Developing Ideas/Voices :: The Self as Audience :: Fulfilling Promises :: Conclusions for Mix-Makers :: Credits

This piece explores the musical rhetorics at work in a mix CD I created for two (at times contrasting) purposes: as a gift for friends, and as an accompaniment in the car as I moved across the country. I suggest that in a linear, musical mix, the term "development" as used in music …

Recitative: The Persuasive Tenor Of Jazz Culture In Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, And John Coltrane, Andrew Vogel

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Jazz is more than music. Jazz is a culture defined by a progressive ethos encoded in sound. By putting the poetry and music of Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, and John Coltrane into conversation, this essay demonstrates the versatility and vitality of jazz culture. However, jazz culture has come to be drowned out in America today, and so I argue for a return to the voices of jazz's past so that we can give a new ear to jazz artists working today. Such listening should be seen as a means to reinvigorate progressive values today and in the future.

The Oral Aural Walter Ong, Abigail Lambke

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This is a transcription of Abigail Lambke's words during the audio piece “The Oral Aural Walter Ong." During the piece, Abigail intersperses her own commentary with excerpts from two of Ong's recorded lectures: “The End of the Age of Literacy," and “The Future of Literacy." Walter Ong explicitly barred transcription of one of these lectures, exclusively granting permission for the piece to be reproduced in audio. To honor that request, none of Ong's words will be transcribed here. The Oral Aural Walter Ong Music: Kevin MacLeod “Peace Of Mind" Hello. I am Abigail Lambke and this is “The Oral Aural …

"The Quiet, Wintry North": Digital Folk Of The Upper Peninsula, Dan W. Lawrence

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

In America's most "remote" of locations, a digital-centric music scene flourishes. But it's not electronic music that the folk of Michigan's wintry Upper Peninsula find interest in: it's a rootsy, quiet, lo-fi, experimental Americana that is self-produced and self-distributed. With no major venues or recording studies, and not even a well-founded independent record label, musicians of the Upper Peninsula turn to the Internet to organize musical performances and events, plan collaborative recording sessions using limited resources, and share their thoughtful, introspective music. The author reflects on these issues of independent folk music and self-production, as well as the digitization of …

On Silence, Daisy Levy

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

I wrote this piece as a way to try to reconcile some difficult events in my life as a teacher, a scholar, and a person living in a complicated world. I wanted to make visible the collage effect of all these things, and so a collage essay was the most interesting form for me. I examine the politics surrounding subjectivity, authority, and the role of voice, in and out of the classroom, in daily life.The events I am drawing on are related: comments from a student on institutional course evaluations, rejection letters from a prominent university's graduate writing program, reflection …