Rhetoric Commons^™

Ua94/6/3 Student/Alumni Personal Papers Wku Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Underground publications created by students while attending WKU, includes 1960's/1970's political protest papers such as the Apocalypse and the Expatriate. How to Survive is a guide to courses and professors to avoid and a guide to life in Bowling Green for university students. The Big Red Tool a 21st century satirical take on WKU is also found here.

Communally Discerning A Covenant Of Hospitality For The Care Of Children At Westview Boys' Home, Ron Bruner

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project addressed the lack of a covenant defining the practice of hospitality towards children for team members of Westview Boys’ Home. The purpose of the project was to facilitate the creation of such a covenant. The Westview ministry team already claimed hospitality as a strength; the hope was that reframing the ministry around this strength would improve the quality of care for children and the quality of life for the community. Invited into a communal discernment process (the methodology), the ministry team invested weeks in the examination of biblical texts, theological tradition, personal and communal narratives, cultural trends, psychological …

Open: A Narrative Criticism, Suzanne Christine Matzenauer

Communication Studies

How did Andre Agassi overcome his battle with depression and struggles with the media and the pressure he put on himself? Andre eventually found ways to conquer his demons and eventually love himself and the support group around him. In this paper, I am going to explain the struggles Andre dealt with from childhood to the bad choices he made when he hit rock bottom. Then I am going to explain how he overcame these obstacles to become one of the greatest athletes to conquer his demons and eventually was able to educate thousands of young children and teach them …

Recovering Brande : Freewriting And Sustainable (Procedural) Expression, Richard Bower

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Dorothea Brande is rarely known in rhetoric and composition yet continues to hold popular influence over writers attracted to Cartesian beliefs. The aim of this project is to recover Brande's contributions in order to rethink composition's trajectories. Chiefly, Dorothea Brande's legacy has been in creative writing through Becoming a Writer. In this bestseller, she establishes a program for putting the Cartesian divide to work. "Writing with the unconscious mind in the ascent," as Brande explains about what Ken Macrorie and Peter Elbow later call freewriting, harnesses the bifurcated consciousness of writers and begins a journey of unification.

Perelman's Theory Of Argumentation And Natural Law, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

Chaim Perelman resuscitated the rhetorical tradition by developing an elegant and detailed theory of argumentation. Rejecting the single-minded Cartesian focus on rational truth, Perelman recovered the ancient wisdom that we can argue reasonably about matters that admit only of probability. From this one would conclude that Perelman’s argumentation theory is inalterably opposed to natural law, and therefore that I would have done better to have written an article titled “Perelman’s Th eory of Argumentation as a Rejection of Natural Law.”

However, my thesis is precisely that Perelman’s theory of argumentation connects to the natural law tradition in interesting and productive …

Critical Discourse Analysis Of Advertisements In Malaysian Women's Magazine., Atiqah Zawani Kamaruzzaman

Student Works (2010-2019)

This research analyzed the advertisements in Malaysian women’s magazines by using Fairclough’s framework in the area of Critical Discourse Analysis. The findings of this research will be valuable to those who are actively participates in researching CDA, that may include lecturers as well as the students who are learning Critical Discourse Analysis. Advertisements in CLEO are used as the data. The data is multimodal, however only the written texts are analyzed. As such, the researcher analyzed the linguistic features in advertisements published in Malaysian women’s magazine. The objective of the researcher was to identify how the magazines interpellate (Althusser 1971) …

A Relevant Ministry: Ideology In Martin Luther King's "I'Ve Been To The Mountaintop", Taylor Jones

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Tractarians' Sermons And Other Speeches, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This is the first chapter of A New History of the Sermon: The Nineteenth Century, a collection of essays I edited for Brill Academic Publishers. It provides an overview of the Tractarians' homiletic theory, and examines the various genres of their oratory: sermons (both "plain" and "university"), lectures, and episcopal charges.

Introduction To A New History Of The Sermon : The Nineteenth Century, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This is the introduction to A New History of the Sermon:The Nineteenth Century, a collection of essays I edited for Brill Academic Publishers. It discusses the concept and history of "rhetorical criticism," and seeks to lay a foundation for the rhetorical study of the Anglo-American pulpit.

Composition Under Review: A Genre Analysis Of Book Reviews In Composition, 1939-2007, Sandra Wald Valensky

Wayne State University Dissertations

Although reviews have been a part of two flagship composition journals, College English and College Composition and Communication throughout their publication histories, little attention has been shown to them in any full length research studies. This dissertation study provides a historical genre analysis of reviews to illustrate the role of reviews in reflecting and contributing to composition's struggle for full disciplinary status.

Methodologically, this mixed methods study uses historical analysis, genre analysis, and an interview study to investigate reviews and their functions in the field of composition. A corpus of 90 reviews, 45 from each journal, was analyzed from 1939 …

An Africentric Reading Protocol: The Speculative Fiction Of Octavia Butler And Tananarive Due, Tonja Lawrence

Wayne State University Dissertations

This examination of Africentric speculative fiction (ASF) applies an Africentric reading protocol to selected works of Octavia E. Butler and Tananarive Due. Butler's Parable Series and Due's African Immortals Series are examined using seven elements of Africentric narrative specific to cultural speculative fiction. Finally, I discuss the implications of using an Africentric reading protocol as an example of cultural analysis that can be adapted to the textual analysis of culturally specific works of fiction.

Thinking Globally, Writing Locally: Re-Visioning Critical And Service Learning Pedagogies With Globalization Theory, Cara Lindsey Kozma

Wayne State University Dissertations

Based on a theoretically informed qualitative study, my dissertation looks at critical and service learning pedagogies, focusing on the numerous critiques that have arisen within contemporary composition scholarship. Critical pedagogy has recently come under scrutiny on the grounds that it opposes students' pragmatic views and career concerns, effects student resistance in the classroom, devalues students' personal experiences, and stigmatizes white students (particularly white males). Within service learning, scholars point to numerous problems as well: It can create a false hierarchy between students and community partners by evoking an ideology of "service" and an us/them mentality; it may not be truly …

The Rhetoric Of The Regional Image Interpreting The Visual Products Of Regional Plannning, Alissa Barber Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Rhetoric of the Regional Image: Interpreting the Visual Products of Regional Planning investigates the manner in which visual conventions and visual contexts of regional visioning scenarios affect their interpretation by urban and regional planners, who use visual communication to meet the technical and rhetorical demands of their professional practice. The research assesses Central Florida‘s ―How Shall We Grow?‖ regional land use scenario using focus groups and interviews with planning professionals, a corresponding survey of community values, and rhetorical analysis to explore the ―How Shall We Grow?‖ scenario as persuasive communication. The Rhetoric of the Regional Image proposes specific recommendations …

Remapping Evil: Locating, Spatializing, And Depicting Evil, Christie Lynn Daniels

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation expands upon critical studies of difference by exploring one particular ideological construct and how its use propagates, maintains, and exacerbates ubiquitously existent social inequalities. The concept of evil has been employed in a way that marginalizes and villainizes individuals, groups, and even entire communities. Moreover, when they are deployed in a visual medium, the ideas and concepts conveyed are often not interrogated as closely as a written work would be. As a result, the guiding question of inquiry for this project is: How have western notions of good and evil been deployed and employed as a mechanism of …

Politics Of Hegemony And Denial In The Rhetoric Of Language And Education Policy In Nepal: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Policy Documents And Government Sponsored Textbooks (1960-2009), Phanindra Kumar Upadhyaya

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation analyses the power dynamics of policy documents and government sponsored text-books in Nepal since the 1960s making use of critical applied discourse analysis as its theoretical lens. It looks into the rhetoric of language policies and planning in Nepal and shows how such rhetoric has shaped the overall linguistic, ethno-linguistic, ethno-religious and educational scenario, both overtly and covertly. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci's "notion of hegemony" and Teun A. van Dijk's "theory of denial," I have shown that there are groups and individuals in societies that try to keep language under control for the promotion of their political, social, …

Recasting The Role Of Memory In The History Of Rhetoric: The Case Of Nineteenth And Twentieth Century Autobiographies By Rhetors Of Color, Hector Carbajal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The primary object of study in this dissertation is memory within autobiographical writing among writers of color. Specifically, this project uses autobiographies by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and Frederick Douglass as case studies for how minority writers of color remember within the act of writing. Memory is an important object of study because it is partially the medium by which knowledge is reproduced, reconstructed, and invented. Autobiographical writing is significant because it is a genre that has enabled individuals to write themselves as part of history. Being a part of history is important because it allows a subject to change the …

A Revolution In Rhetoric: Recycling The Language Of Control Through Rhetorical Activism, Jerien Elizabeth Rausch

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The English language, with its infinite space and possibility, is and can be recycled to recreate authority of voice and representations of the past. Where once language was used for creating and maintaining colonial control, now, with its careful study and critical (re)applications through fictions written as alternative versions of colonial events, it can be a source of power for the reclamations of identity, culture, religion, history, story, context, and imagination. This study (re)examines an iconic exploration and colonial narrative to highlight the rhetoric used to capture and create Indigenous Peoples and places. Additionally, this study explores how works of …

La Rhétorique De La Persuasion Dans Le Penser De Royal Mémoire De Guillaume Michel, Dit De Tours, Lidia Radi

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

En 1518, chez Jehan de la Garde et Pierre le Brodeur, paraît un recueil ayant pour titre Le Penser de Royal Mémoire, composé d´une douzaine de pièces dont la plupart sont des épîtres. La taille de chacune de ces compositions varie selon son propos, et aussi selon la fonction qu´elle remplit dans la structure de l´oeuvre. Chaque pièce a un caractère à la fois didactique et épidictique. La plupart sont adressées au jeune roi François 1^er, pour l´inciter à se lancer dans la croisade proclamée par le pape Léon X, avec qui il signe un nouveau Concordat^{2 …}

The Interpretation-Construction Distinction, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The interpretation-construction distinction, which marks the difference between linguistic meaning and legal effect, is much discussed these days. I shall argue that the distinction is both real and fundamental – that it marks a deep difference in two different stages (or moments) in the way that legal and political actors process legal texts. My account of the distinction will not be precisely the same as some others, but I shall argue that it is the correct account and captures the essential insights of its rivals. This Essay aims to mark the distinction clearly!

The basic idea can be explained by …