Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Institution
- Keyword
-
- Rhetoric (3)
- Agency (1)
- Agent (Philosophy) (1)
- Blacks--Study and teaching (1)
- Conspiracy theory (1)
-
- Culinary Literacy (1)
- Cults (1)
- Digital Food Media (1)
- Historical Cookbooks (1)
- Media literacy; English profession; pop culture; rhetoric; advertising; higher education (1)
- Muammar Al-Gaddafi (1)
- Narrative (1)
- Phenomenology (1)
- Plot (1)
- Populism -- United States (1)
- Presidents -- United States (1)
- QAnon (1)
- Recipe Discourse (1)
- Religion--Study and teaching (1)
- Rhetoric -- Political aspects (1)
- Semiotics (1)
- Social change--Religious aspects--Christianity (1)
- Sponsors of Literacy (1)
- Tennessee--History (1)
- U.S. government (1)
- Voice (1)
Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Rhetoric
The Curtains Aren’T Just Blue: The Decline Of Media Literacy Within Pop-Culture, Kaia Divisconti
The Curtains Aren’T Just Blue: The Decline Of Media Literacy Within Pop-Culture, Kaia Divisconti
Honors Theses
This paper explores the relationship between the growing belief that media like film, television and advertisements “aren’t that deep” and the decline of English departments within education. This study explores how pillars of English departments, like analysis and rhetorical awareness, are pivotal for students to learn to understand the vast number of digital media that they are faced with every day. Through pop-culture moments of American Eagle “good genes” advertisement campaign, media trends like “red pill” content and stereotypical representation in film, this paper examines how this content is pushed onto students and how departments like English and humanities can …
From The Kitchens Of Lords To Pinterest Boards: An Examination Of Recipe Discourse, Haley Hansen
From The Kitchens Of Lords To Pinterest Boards: An Examination Of Recipe Discourse, Haley Hansen
Honors Theses
This paper traces the evolution of written recipe discourse from medieval manuscripts to modern digital platforms, examining how changes in recipe structure, audience, and purpose reflect broader shifts in cultural literacy and sponsorship. Drawing on Deborah Brandt’s theory of “sponsors of literacy,” the author argues that recipe authors have historically acted as sponsors of culinary literacy, shaping who has access to cooking knowledge and how that knowledge is communicated. Through close analysis of recipes from the Forme of Cury (1390), American Cookery (1796), the Good Housekeeping Cookbook (1963), and a contemporary food blog, the study highlights the increasing democratization of …
Gender Performance In “Cult” Conversion Narratives: The Twelve Tribes, Navah Chestnut
Gender Performance In “Cult” Conversion Narratives: The Twelve Tribes, Navah Chestnut
Honors Theses
While many scholars have attempted to understand the unique contours of the definition of “cult,” there are still rampant disagreements across different disciplines and scholarly persuasions about the way that a “cult” functions differently than other organizations. In this essay, I aim to clarify how the function of a “cult” is contingent upon a set of rhetorical strategies used by the group to systematically remove agency from group members. One of those rhetorical strategies is compelling individuals to perform according to strict heteronormative gender enactments. To understand how this strategy works, I will turn to four spiritually metanoic narratives published …
Social Change Through Rhetorical Action: Case Studies Of Two Tennessee Women In The Archives, Dalton Burks
Social Change Through Rhetorical Action: Case Studies Of Two Tennessee Women In The Archives, Dalton Burks
Honors Theses
In conversations about social change and activism, the American South is rarely represented as a place where such change occurs. However, this analysis will focus on two unlikely activists who used their writing and voices to advocate for change on a local scale in their individual communities. These activists are Emma Bell Miles, an artist, naturalist, and creative writer from Chattanooga, Tennessee who wrote a persuasive column in the Chattanooga News on feminism and naturalism, and Mary Cunningham, a local librarian and mother from McMinnville, Tennessee who created the Magness Library and Community House. This thesis argues that Miles and …
Speech Acts As Contingent Encounters: Realizing Agency In Contaminated Worlds, Zachary Cross
Speech Acts As Contingent Encounters: Realizing Agency In Contaminated Worlds, Zachary Cross
Honors Theses
Agency is realized in the act of speaking, an act which is always contingent on a collaborative process that transforms all parties involved. We think and act with one another and our concepts, there is no act of speech prior to encounter. In this paper I explore different ways which language shapes our thinking and play with those structures to use them as models for realizing agency. This exploration became personal insofar as exploring ways of thinking transformed my own sense of agency in the speech act. The completion of this paper is thus essential to its conclusion.
On Narrative Approaches To Conspiracy Theory, John Hydrisko
On Narrative Approaches To Conspiracy Theory, John Hydrisko
Honors Theses
This thesis handles narrative approaches to conspiracy theory. It provides an overview of conspiracy theory and narrative before affirming a relationship between the two. It then introduces Fenster’s work on conspiracy narrative before engaging with the considerations therein. After discussing the tradition of visualizing narrative structure, it applies these practices to conspiracy narrative. This application allows for a discussion of recent innovations within conspiracy narrative. By using the QAnon as a case study, the paper investigates the emergence of protagonism and non-narrativism within the genre. Ultimately, this investigation suggests that contemporary conspiracy narrative is both better suited to the modern …
Building A (Great) Wall: A Semiotic Analysis Of The Rhetoric Of President Donald J. Trump, Lauren Gilmore
Building A (Great) Wall: A Semiotic Analysis Of The Rhetoric Of President Donald J. Trump, Lauren Gilmore
Honors Theses
When Donald J. Trump announced he was running for president of the United States, the country was thrown into division. He was an abnormality as a presidential candidate and a rhetorical oddity since so many of his messages were ones of ignorance and bigotry rather than understanding and inclusion, the expected rhetoric of a president. Through a semiotic analysis, this study aims to understand who the people were that supported Trump, why his rhetoric appealed to them, the ways in which Trump talked about America and its people, and how his supporters interpreted his language. Semiotics is the study of …
Presidents And Populist Politics, Brooke Sobo
Presidents And Populist Politics, Brooke Sobo
Honors Theses
Populist language is a common rhetorical practice of United States Presidents. There is a breadth of literature on the study of populism and populist language, yet few studies identify populist language as reimagining the relationship between president and people. This paper identifies populist language as a political tactic of presidents and links the tactic’s use to the cultivation of authority and legitimacy. A central theoretical foundation of this paper rests on Skowronek’s concept of political time and authority structures. Through the use of four case studies spanning the presidencies of Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump, this …
A Rhetorical History Of Black Studies: Black Power & Epistemology, Kayla Corbin
A Rhetorical History Of Black Studies: Black Power & Epistemology, Kayla Corbin
Honors Theses
In this thesis, using my own experiences and research, I will map out a rhetorical history of Black studies and its relationship with the Black Power Movement in the late 1960s. Using Foucault’s method of genealogy, I will highlight the distinct epistemological assumptions that inform Black studies as a discipline by looking at the material conditions and moment in which the discipline was created. In order to do this, my thesis will interrogate three interrelated discourses of Black studies at the university level: first, the larger history of student activism and its relation to Black studies; second, my own approach …
Constructing Muammar Al-Gaddafi, Kristin Kushlan
Constructing Muammar Al-Gaddafi, Kristin Kushlan
Honors Theses
Rhetoricians such as Robert Ivie and George Lakoffhave examined the use of language of opposition to create and control various enemies during the War on Terror, but they have also ignored or overlooked numerous cases. This paper will examine one such case, that of Muammar al-Gaddafi, whose reciprocal violence eventually succumbed to the oppressor's global economic power. This case study will explore how the U.S. government rhetorically constructed Gaddafi in order to control both his identity within American society (as either an enemy or an ally), as well as the counter-violence that Gaddafi supposedly enacted against Western systems of power. …