Rhetoric Commons^™

Toward A Theology Of Transformation, Hannah Kathleen Griggs

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

Black liberation theologians come to terms with white supremacy by collectively remembering the story of the Exodus and Jesus' crucifixion--affirming God's preference for freedom and in-the-world salvation. The particular history of white American Christianity requires a different story to provide the foundation for our social memory. As white American Christians, we have certain blind spots—blind spots created by historical and social privileges that have given white people unequal access to power and resources. The story of Zacchaeus has the potential to help reframe white Christianity’s conception of race relations in the United States, shifting from a reconciliation paradigm to a …

The Phenomenon Of Rome: On Roads, Refugees, And Teilhard De Chardin, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

Teilhard de Chardin’s understanding of creation as an evolutionary process is used as a lens for studying Roman roads and refugees. A shorter version of this essay was published in Seton Hall University 2018 Core Trip, pages 28-33. This draft has been submitted for potential publication in Writing Rome: A Spiritual Journey, Kelly Shea ed.

Ua37/42 Faculty Personal Papers Nina Hammer, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Personal papers of Nina Hammer, Bowling Green Business University Registrar 1938-1963; WKU Registrar 1963-1969.

Credibility Strategies Of Popular Health Websites: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Parkinson's Information Pages, Abigail Bakke

English Department Publications

Though using e-health is a common patient practice, unregulated and inaccurate online medical content can pose real dangers. To effectively convey important and accurate health messages, online health organizations must make their information stand out as trustworthy. To identify credibility strategies, I conducted a rhetorical analysis of Parkinson’s disease content from the two most popular U.S. health websites: NIH.gov and WebMD. Based on the range of credibility strategies identified in these webpages, I recommend that medical writers and e-health designers convey both expertise and trustworthiness to build credibility in their content.

City College English 11000, Thomas Collins

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus for a zero-textbook-cost section of City College's English 11000, a first-year composition course.

The Resonance And Residue Of The First African American Newspaper: How Freedom's Journal Created Space In The Early 19th Century, Valerie Kasper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first African American newspaper, Freedom's Journal, has a historical, rhetorical, and spatial purpose. It not only showed the impact made by African Americans in the fight for their civil rights in the early 19th century, but as an artifact it illustrated and preserved that history allowing it to be studied centuries after the newspaper ceased printing. The purpose of The Resonance and Residue of the First African American Newspaper: How Freedom's Journal Created Space in the Early 19th Century is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to historical newspapers that illustrates an alternative history in this country — a history …

Emergent Narrative: Stories Of Play, Playing With Stories, Eric Murnane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emergent narrative, a phenomenon of unexpected contextual stories arising through play, has been researched in the field of game studies since 1999. However, that discussion largely lies in the realm of theoretical stories which are generated by either the system or the player. The purpose of this dissertation is to deepen our understanding of emergent narrative by examining real-world examples of the phenomenon. Four hundred player posts were gathered from forums relating to the video game Skyrim (a large, open world fantasy roleplaying game) and analyzed using a mixed-method framework which is informed by digital ethnography, fan studies, and game …

Zen And The Art Of Guitar Burning, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

No abstract provided.

Exploring A Three-Dimensional Narrative Medium: The Theme Park As "De Sprookjessprokkelaar," The Gatherer And Teller Of Stories, Carissa Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the pervasiveness of storytelling in theme parks and establishes the theme park as a distinct narrative medium. It traces the characteristics of theme park storytelling, how it has changed over time, and what makes the medium unique. This was accomplished using a mixed methods approach drawing data from interviews with creative professionals, archival research, fieldwork, and an analysis of more than eight hundred narrative attractions. The survey of narrative attractions revealed the most common narrative expressions to be dark rides and stage shows. Source material tends to be cultural tales (legends, fairy tales) or intellectual properties (generally …

John H. Vincent: The Other Co-Founder Of Chautauqua, Timothy S. Binkley

Bridwell Library Research

This address, delivered at the Chautauqua Institution Hall of Philosophy on July 20, 2018, reviews the life of John Heyl Vincent (1832-1920) and his relationship to the Chautauqua Institution. Vincent was an American Methodist clergyman and bishop and a leading figure in the Sunday School movement. In 1874 Vincent and businessman Lewis Miller (1829-1899) established an innovative, trans-denominational Sunday School teachers’ training event on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York state. Under the leadership of Vincent and Miller, that event developed into the Chautauqua Institution: an annual summer-long celebration of the arts, religion, education, and recreation, and …

Budweiser In The 2017 Super Bowl: Dialectic Values Advocacy And The Rhetorical Stakeholder, Benjamin P. Windholz

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Organizational-public relations discourse is changing given the advent of social media, and corporate statements are evaluated under different criteria in the digital age. Grounding Budweiser’s response to controversy over their 2017 Super Bowl advertisement in terms of consumer expectations for corporate social responsibility provides a new perspective for approaching Bostdorff and Vibbert’s (1994) conceptualization of values advocacy. This study recognizes the power of the rhetorical stakeholder, a discursively created public, and demands re-evaluation of the values common to society from a co-creational OPR perspective. Conceptualizing dialectic values advocacy outlines the changing values among contemporary, common stakeholders as well as the …

Hymnody Of Change: A Study Of Classical African Orature In A Social Justice Context, Keith L. Royal

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Communal music has been and is still a prominent method of cultural expression for generations, in particular for the generations of displaced Africans on American soil. The roots of this music, an amalgam of African tradition and a forced Christianity, have remained a constant companion to African American cultural response to inequity. Thus, it is imperative that communication tools be developed that allow analysis of this music, collections of communally sung works that communicate the destruction and continual reconstruction of a colonized culture. The purpose of this study is to explicate communally sung hymns, those sung in a social justice …

Composition Pedagogy For The 21st Century : A Culturally Inclusive Model, Stephanie Hassan Richardson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As cultural and racial demographics continue to diversify across college campuses, the First Year Composition (FYC) classroom becomes a site wherein faculty can engage in transformative pedagogical strategies to maximize ways in which students’ culturally diverse backgrounds can influence their rhetorical strategies in meaningful ways. However, a critical analysis of FYC and factors influencing its design and impact demonstrate that, to a large degree, faculty are not implementing pedagogical strategies that incorporate cultural rhetorics in strategic ways. This critical analysis sought to understand the significant factors hampering faculty desire and ability to deliver Culturally Inclusive Pedagogy (CIP), which is a …

Treating The Writing Trauma : Managing Anxiety And Promoting Transfer Among Adult Learners With Workplace Writing Pedagogies, Jamie Ann Frankenfield

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Jamie Frankenfield: Treating the Writing Trauma: Managing anxiety and Promoting Transfer

A Tropic Understanding Of Street Art As Political And Social Advocacy, Lindsay K. Kosel

Honors Theses and Capstones

Graffiti and street art has been prevalent in the past few decades taking stances toward social and political adversity, but there lacks discussion about how dialogue is provoked within street artwork. Through the detailed analysis of the visual display created by JR on the West Bank Wall, these paper places focus on the rhetorical function of how street artist utilize images as means for political and social advocacy. The display shifts the focus from trauma, dislocation, and victimhood to that of comedic relief in our “humanness”. The identification of tropes within a street art display indicates that they are in …

Re/Framing The Hispanic/Latino Nonprofit Identity, Jasmine Villa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The focus of my Dissertation is to examine how an organizational identity is constructed rhetorically by three Hispanic/Latino based non-profit organization. By looking at how a non-profit organization's online presence contributes to the transformation of the organization as a public, we are able to see rhetoric as a discursive and material practice taking place.

Communicating The Health Impacts Of Climate Change: From Conviction To Persuasion, Emma Lozon

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Drawing on rhetorical theory as well as research in health and environmental communication, this thesis analyzes the effectiveness of messages that link climate change with health implications at moving audiences to persuasion. The two texts analyzed are a report produced by a group of physicians advocating for action on climate change and an episode from the Years of Living Dangerously Series. The findings indicate that communicators have the opportunity to frame climate-change-health messages in rhetorically sensitive ways that are more likely to empower audiences. Progressing from problems to solutions and to benefits of taking action can frame distressing health messages …

Accessing Library Space: Spatial Rhetorics From The U.S. To France And Back Again, Emily Simmons

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The exterior environments of libraries are sites rich for study, as they often hold histories of inequality that affect present-day access and use in complex, layered ways. The particularities of the environment through which community members pass before entering a library have an impact on the experience within the library. If libraries wish to remain public spaces dedicated to the strengthening of democracy, they should extend their focus beyond their walls to the surrounding neighborhood. This study puts into conversation the fields of spatial rhetorics, accessibility, and critical geography. Four topoi were developed to assess the accessibility of exterior library …

Constitutive Memories Of City Space: Rhetorics Of Civil Rights Memory In Detroit’S Urban Landscape, Scott Mitchell

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation examines public memories of civil rights injustice and resistance as constitutive rhetorics of urban culture and spatiality for the city of Detroit. By studying the city of Detroit as it navigates an ongoing period of dramatic change and redevelopment, this study demonstrates how material manifestations of memory become the constitutive forces that define what many describe as “Detroit’s heart and soul.” This project illustrates the embedded cultural logics produced from sites of public memory, thereby arguing city spaces as locations bound to their legacies and beholden to material and symbolic consequences of their past. This dissertation proceeds through …

Snowden Is (Not) A Whistleblower: An Analysis Of Ideographs And Anti-Democratic Rhetorical Strategies Within The U.S. Government’S Response To Edward Snowden, Joshua Guitar

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is a rhetorical criticism of the U.S. government’s response to Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed illegal and unethical surveillance tactics of the National Security Agency and U.S. government. Informed by contemporary theories of democracy, this synchronic ideographic analysis examines the rhetorical strategies of U.S. government officials following Snowden’s disclosures. This dissertation contends that in laboring to absolve themselves of culpability, U.S. officials obfuscated Snowden and operationalized as an ideograph. This reification provides methodological development to ideographic analysis as it demonstrates how a political figure can become a rhetorical abstraction used for ideological purposes. The rhetorical interplay between …

Democratic Communication: Lessons From The Flint Water Crisis, Mindy Myers

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation develops an approach to institutional critique that re-works Porter, Sullivan, Blythe, Grabill, and Miles’ foundational configuration. This project argues that John Dewey’s concept of democratic communication articulated in his debate with Walter Lippmann provides a useful heuristic for developing democratic communicative practices that allow citizens and experts to communicate with one another about technical issues such as water quality and safety. Through an analysis of Michigan’s emergency manager law, the relationship between citizens and experts that exposed the crisis, and the Flint Water Advisory Task Force’s Final Report, this dissertation establishes that citizens must participate in technical decision-making …

Touching The Unreal: The Definition, Narrative Strategies, And Aesthetics Of 3d Cartoon Narratives., Nathan Snow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"Touching the Unreal" follows the structure set out by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics to argue that understanding cartoons is serious business and requires that we define the art form, outline its basic tenets, and theorize how the mind understands it. The dissertation argues for a new definition of 3D computer generated cartoons, beginning with the most basic definition applicable to all forms of animation and taking into account new technological developments before arriving at the 3D cartoon narratives of today. The dissertation outlines the basic facets of 3D cartoon narratives in terms of narrative and aesthetics, arguing that, in …

Celebrities, Fans, And Queering Gender Norms: A Critical Examination Of Lady Gaga's, Nicki Minaj's, And Fans' Use Of Instagram, Brandy Dieterle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation used queer rhetoric as a lens for studying queering gender norms on Instagram by using Lady Gaga's, Nicki Minaj's, and fan posts as case studies. The research considers how celebrities may use social media, like Instagram, for queering gender norms, and what this might look like. This research also aimed to better understand if and how fans may take up celebrities' efforts at queering gender norms and, in turn, queer gender norms in their own Instagram posts where they tag Gaga or Minaj. To conduct this research, I took a multimodal methodological approach and collected and coded 1,000 …

Spatial Genres Of Revitalization: Desiring-Machines And The Production Of Public Subjects, Larry S. Morgan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project, Spatial Genres of Revitalization: Desiring-Machines and the Production of Public Subjects, is guided by the need to understand how the recent changes in El Paso's gentrifying downtown are impacting the development of public subjectivities. This Thesis is concerned with how the formation of public subjectivities is occasioned by changes in a city undergoing "revitalization" in terms of how people move through urban space. At the same time it is also concerned with how the people moving these spaces imagine and configure it to different ends which surpass the intention and violence of gentrification.

To this end, Spatial Genres …

Technological Literacy Across Disciplines: Examining Graduate Instructors' Experiences, Sidouane Patcha Lum

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation critically examines graduate instructors’ technological literacy across disciplines in a four-year university, in order to explore avenues through which their challenges teaching with classroom technologies can be met. It also investigates the possibility that non- resident instructors and resident instructors’ difference in cultural orientations (patterns, norms and ways of doing) influence instructors’ ability to use technology for their specific functions. For this purpose, Multi (modal) literacy theories and the TPACK framework (technological, pedagogical and content, knowledge) are used as theoretical underpinnings which foster a better understanding of instructors’ technological literacy, while grounded theory developed by Glaser and Strauss …

Rethinking Multimodality In First-Year Composition: Applying Theories Of Digital Rhetoric, Procedural Rhetoric, And Electracy To Multimodal Assignments, Jennifer Falcon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

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Literacies Of The Disaster Zone: New Media Genres And Participatory Rhetorics After The 2010 Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill, R. J. Lambert

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

On April 20, 2010, explosions at the British Petroleum (BP) Macondo Project in the Gulf of Mexico initiated what would become the world's largest accidental release of oil into the ocean. This ecological disaster, a unique combination of natural and human causes, is one of many significant traumas over approximately the last two decades that various stakeholders have documented, participated in, and responded to largely through the expanding and increasingly ubiquitous media of the internet, computers, cell phones, and other networked communicative technologies, which both enable and constrain the variety of responses to traumatic events.

This Dissertation improves our understanding …

A Mexican American's Passage: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Identity And Self-Empowerment, Corina Lerma

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis presents a critical autoethnography that explores how an understanding of political and cultural events have contributed to my conflicted sense of identity. The purpose of the study was to identify genealogical and historical patterns that manifest in the traumas that have influenced and problematized the construction of my reality and to discover if personal traumas and conflicted senses of identity as a Mexican American in the United States finds any source in the social and political events that took place during the Mexican Repatriation of the 1930s. The autoethnography was conducted both through research of Mexican American history, …

Community College Writing Program Administrators: Implementing Change Through Advocacy, Lizbett Tinoco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation, Community College WPAs: Implementing Change Through Advocacy, examines the work and role of Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) at community colleges. Defining the role and the work of WPAs is very complex, and even more so at community colleges since these institutions are very diverse places in regards to programmatic structure and student population. The scholarship of writing program administration has typically excluded community colleges; as a result, my research focuses on including these narratives. Unlike a lot of WPA narratives that often describe WPAs as "composition wives" (Schuster, 1991; Hesse, 1999) who do much of the dirty work …

When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value And What We Do Not, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In this essay, I argue that the debate on free speech as pushed by the conservative right is a strategic apparatus to undermine the various diversity initiatives on college and university campuses. While supporters of the right wing extremists around the globe have pushed for various modes of exclusions (social, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual), here in the United States, such exclusions are most evident in the collapse of academic freedom and the rise of civility codes as students and educators use the platform of free speech to promote various forms of injustices and exclusions. Our neoliberal college and …