Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons^™

‘Passing’ The Baton Of Trauma: Queer Failure Of The Women’S Sport Policy Working Group’S Anti-Trans ‘Position’, Meredith M. Bagley, Mary Anne Taylor, Sarah F. Price

Publications and Research

Engaging in critical rhetorical theory and methodology, we interrogate the contemporary landscape of anti-trans backlash in women’s sport. Specifically, we read the ‘TERF wars’ (Pearce et al.) across critiques of biofeminism (Pape) and whiteness (Fischer) while drawing upon critical social science research into trauma-bonding, bullying, and the structural impacts of gender verification policies. Our analysis focuses on the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group (WSPWG), offering a trauma-informed reading of the WSPWG’s ‘Position’ statement to illuminate how lesbian female athletes who were previously slandered for failing to meet femininity norms in sport are unable to overcome that trauma to recognize and …

Good News For The Poor And More: Reclaiming Martin Luther King, Jr.'S Radical Gospel Of Economic Justice In Pursuit Of The Beloved Community, Lester A. Mccorn

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation, Good News for the Poor and More: Reclaiming Martin Luther King Jr.’s Radical Gospel of Economic Justice in Pursuit of the Beloved Community, argues that Martin Luther King Jr.—one of the most transformational American leaders of the 20th century—should be best understood as a central figure within the Black Social Gospel tradition whose rhetoric constitutes a sustained socio-political and theological critique of economic injustice. Moving beyond interpretations that limit King to racial integration and civil rights, this study demonstrates that his preaching confronts the structural realities of poverty, racial capitalism, and militarism as interrelated forms of systemic …

D&D Beyond Bikini-Mail: Having Women At The Table, Daniel Carlson

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Dungeons and Dragons represents a space that is often treated as an echo chamber for young (usually white) men to act out fantasies of power and control, which makes up for their inability to perform such actions in the real world. Using the work of Sherry Turkle and Michelle Dickey, I posit that this game is a nuanced location acting as a safe space for people to act out different aspects of their identity or life experiences in a low-risk environment enhanced by the connections made between the players and their characters. In this work, I have utililzed feminist frames …

Women In White Christian Nationalism, Danielle M. Urton

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper analyzes the appeals of White Christian Nationalism (WCN) to the “subordinate” demographic of white women, with specific attention to the use of rhetoric across the movement to attract women as allies, supporters, and promoters of the ideology.

Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller

Communication ETDs

Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …

"Don't Put Restrictions On Us": The Dangers Of Conservative And Populist Appeals For Abortion Access In Post-Roe America, Kayla Schmitz

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis critically analyzes Kansans for Constitutional Freedom’s campaign ads for their campaign against the Value Them Both Amendment in Kansas in 2022. Value Them Both would have stripped the Kansas constitution of its protection of personal autonomy and therefore abortion rights. Kansans for Constitutional Freedom used populist and otherwise conservative appeals in their ads to reach audiences across the political “spectrum” to gain their votes against Value Them Both. While the campaign was widely successful, there are many things it did not do for the broader concern of reproductive healthcare access in the United States, particularly for those living …

The Myth Of Perfection: Charting The Rhetoric Of Veteran Disability For A Course To Stability, Nicholas Rader

All Dissertations

This dissertation rhetorically analyzes discrimination in Western institutional discourses and documentation procedures, such as architectural texts and procedures, through a historiographic lens. An analytical methodology will be offered to show how discrimination of intersectional bodies is historically informed and reaffirmed by the manipulation of Western myths and mythos. Specifically, by mapping navigational mathematics and cartographic methods over rhetorical, architectural, and historiographic theory, it will be shown how the manipulation of Western myths establishes and reifies patriarchal discrimination that eventually fissions into eugenicist logics in nineteenth and twentieth century France, England, and the United States. In modernity, the practice of manipulating …

The Future Is Full Of Monsters: Queer Survival One Click At A Twine, 'Aolani N. Robinson

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Spurred by a desire to explore queer rhetoric through interactive forms of media, this project analyzed the game-making program Twine to uncover how independent queer creators use the tool to explore queer survival against time, capitalism, and constrained identities. A more accessible platform than other game-making tools, Twine’s unique interactivity puts the ability to make interactive games and stories into the hands of indie marginalized creators who are often overlooked in both mainstream gaming and queer rhetorics (Anthropy, 2012). Thus, this thesis contributes to queer rhetoric, game studies, and trans rhetorics by exploring the strategies indie Twine creators use in …

Feminist Praxis Of Comparative Rhetoric, Mari Lee Mifsud

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Why is a feminist praxis necessary for a comparative study of rhetoric? What would a feminist praxis of comparative rhetoric do? mean? be? What can we come to know with a feminist praxis of comparative rhetoric? Offering first a critique of the idea of a comparative approach through feminist theories challenging binary epistemology and metaphorical meaning making, this essay proceeds to theorize a feminist praxis of comparative rhetoric. This feminist praxis engages the study of histories and theories of rhetoric across cultures by analyzing along intersectional lines of power exposing injustices and exploring potential for equity, decolonizing knowledge, and deconstructing …

Navigating Hate: The Public Deliberation Of Matthew Shepard And Hate Crime Legislation, Abigail Barnes

Master's Theses

Since Matthew Shepard’s murder in 1998, his narrative has been recirculated to justify a federal hate crime statute and Shepard has been used as a symbol for the demand for hate crime legislation. This study seeks to evaluate how Shepard is used in public deliberation, the role of private organizations in the public deliberation of hate crime legislation, and the discursive history of the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009. Through a rhetorical criticism, this study finds that the nuances of Shepard’s narrative are abandoned in order to construct him as a “permissible” symbol for LGBTQ+ protections. However, if …

Leveraging Maternal Rhetoric, Space, And Experience: La Leche League's Emergence As A Counterpublic, Jenny Lynn Moore

English Theses & Dissertations

For over six decades, the international, mother-to-mother breastfeeding support organization La Leche League (LLL) has been helping women breastfeed successfully. LLL was formed at a time when the dominant ideology of scientific motherhood framed mothers as obedient adherents to physicians’ strict guidelines, which encouraged bottle-feeding and discouraged close mother-child bonds. LLL has been credited with challenging scientific motherhood, transforming medical discourse and practices surrounding infant feeding, and prompting the medical professional to accept mothers’ active involvement in decision-making; yet, paradoxically, it has also constrained mothers by reducing women to their maternal biology, discouraging mothers from participating in the public sphere, …

Challenging Public Rhetoric Justifying Immigrants As ‘Indecent', Aaron Martin, Lisette Lemerise, Riya Chhabra, Sudharshana P. Kanduri, Julia Beleshi

Honors Scholarly Publications

Elites employ various rhetorical strategies in public discourse, including on the topic of immigration. As such, those with influence rely on storytelling to shape views about the narratives related to immigrants as a minority out-group. This has significant consequences, particularly in areas of policy development. Policy shapers have isolated immigrant groups by creating certain ideologically derived criteria well beyond citizenship for them to eventually receive “full American” status. Further, such status first has required immigrants to unduly prove their “worthiness” as exceptional—like being extra hardworking and very law abiding. Our essay seeks to show how foundational rhetoric is often intentionally …

God Of War: Masculinity And Fatherhood Through Procedural Rhetoric, Andrew A. Morgan

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Video games and academia have a long history with one another. Academic researchers have continued to debate the extent to which video games can materialize real world effects. In this thesis, I employ procedural rhetoric and feminist scholarship to analyze the rhetorical power of God of War. I focus on the game’s immersive procedures and the performances of masculinity from Kratos, Atreus, and Baldur. These three characters all perform different masculinities, and their interactions with one another inform the game’s portrayal of masculinity and fatherhood. By engaging in violence and depicting nuanced performances of masculinity, God of War positions the …

The Weight Of Words: A Content Analysis Of Rhetoric In Online News Articles Reporting On Sex Crimes, Julie Snell

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the rhetoric that is used in online news articles about sexual assault to see if discriminatory language is prevalent when reporting on different races. A content analysis of 100 online news articles was conducted to answer two research questions: 1) In what ways, if any, does the media use discriminatory rhetoric in online news articles when reporting on sexual assault offenders who are, or appear to be, racial minorities? 2) In what ways, if any, does the media use discriminatory rhetoric in online news articles when reporting on sexual assault victims who …

Reclaiming Rhetorical Intersectionality: From Silence To Parrhesia And Attuned Listening, Tahirah Walker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intersectionality is a term applied by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in the late 1980s to a social experience. A person experiences intersectionality when different aspects of her identity converge in a way that causes uniquely amplified marginalization or oppression. The classic three identities that produce intersectionality experiences in the United States are race, gender, and class, making poor women of color the central figures of intersectionality study. Crenshaw explained that these forces take three main forms: structural, political and representational (“Mapping the Margins” 1243).

Intersectionality has always been rhetorical. Structural, political and representational intersectionality are supported in language. The power of …

The Persuasiveness Of France’S Far-Right Movement: The Case Of Marine Le Pen, Amali Kartika Karawita

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

Social and economic issues coupled with the growing social discontentment have led to a surge in popularity of far-right movements. In France, the far-right represented by Marine Le Pen and her party, the Front National (FN) were predicted to have a fair chance of winning the 2017 election. The rebranding of Marine Le Pen’s image and the strategy of persuasion used have helped her rise as a serious candidate and imposed the far-right in the French landscape. The present study offers an analysis of the strategy of persuasion used which includes an analysis of the discourse and the image of …

After The Shoe Fits: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Four Versions Of The Cinderella Narrative, Faith L. Boren

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fairy tales hold the power to influence societies and to challenge societal injustices, and the story of Cinderella exemplifies both of these roles. In this study, I conduct a rhetorical analysis of four different versions of the Cinderella narrative: Charles Perrault’s “Cendrillon,” the Brothers Grimm’s “Ascenputtel,” Anne Sexton’s "Cinderella,” and Disney’s Cinderella (2015). I examine Perrault’s “Cendrillon” and the Grimms’ “Aschenputtel” using constitutive rhetoric. This theory operates around the basic premise that rhetoric holds the power to aid in the shaping of societies. While analyzing “Cendrillon” and “Aschenputtel,” I specifically look for themes of classism and nationalism, respectively. I then …

Sexy Robots: A Perpetuation Of Patriarchy, Ashlyn Des Roches

Communication Studies

This feminist critique looks into the way that gender, specifically females, are portrayed in some of Hollywood's top films involving Artificial Intelligence: Blade Runner, Her, and Ex Machina. These movies work as a perpetuation of patriarchal ideologies while maintaining the objectification and hypersexuality of women as normalized behaviors. Additionally, while some forms of empowerment are conveyed, the features illustrate women merely on a spectrum of extreme behavior; due to Heuristics and Cultivation Theory, these misrepresentations can be associated with women outside the surrealist realm of the depicted artificially intelligent worlds.

Hillary Rodham Clinton And Shifts In Gendered Rhetorical Style, Mackenzie Lombardi

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Hillary Rodham Clinton is arguably the most visible and controversial female political figure of our time. As First Lady, the Senator from New York, the Secretary of State, and a two-time Presidential candidate, the rhetorical space around Clinton is saturated with cultural assumptions of gender, power, and politics. In many ways Clinton is emblematic of the infamous “double bind” that all women who seek to challenge normative gendered roles must inevitably face. Much academic and cultural focus has been centered on the ways in which Hillary Rodham Clinton is a subject of gendered rhetoric. This paper, instead, builds on the …

Agitation In Amsterdam: The International Dimension Of Carrie Chapman Catt's Suffrage Rhetoric, Matthew Gerber

Speaker & Gavel

The rhetoric of Carrie Chapman Catt has only recently begun to be studied and theorized across several disciplinary contexts. In the field of communication and rhetorical criticism, previous studies have focused on either Catt’s domestic addresses to her followers and to the U.S. Congress, or have identified Catt’s international diplomacy as one of many motivating factors that spurred action toward suffrage by the American Congress. The focus of this essay is an attempt to analyze Catt’s shame appeals from an audience-centered perspective and begin to make plausible arguments about the instrumental effect of those strategies. Through an examination and close-textual …

If We're Mocking Anything, It's Organized Religion: The Queer Holy Fool Style Of The Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence, Christina L. Ivey

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Asking questions in and about the often rough terrain at the intersection of sexuality/gender and religion/spirituality, this dissertation seeks to excavate the concept of queer holy fool style as a fitting response to dominant Judeo-Christian narratives that marginalize LGBTQ individuals. To do so, I utilize the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI), a drag performing community of “21^st Century Nuns,” as a synechdoche; pulling examples of their communication and performances as evidence of queer holy fool style. In exploring three facets of stylistic study (embodied, textual/hypertextual, and sociological), I blend queer theoretical concepts (like camp, performativity, and disciplining) with rhetorical …

Cooking Without Women: The Rhetoric Of The New Culinary Male, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Between their detailed instructions, measurements, and helpful hints, cookbooks provide directives about the proper management of household space. Cookbooks establish rules that govern intimate habits, helping readers to make sense of how cooking rituals fit within the domestic division of labor. They cultivate, naturalize, and sometimes resist domestic habits as they pass into the realm of unconscious investments that ideological critics call “common sense.” However, Isaac West argues that while cookbooks “invite readers into specific subject positions, some of which are more attainable than others,” they provide cooks with “opportunities for communicating who they are and who they might want …

From The Gay Bar To The Search Bar: Promiscuity, Identity, And Queer Mobility On Grindr, Chase Aunspach

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis is a critical exploration into the mobile application Grindr and how it rhetorically constitutes its users and their experience of queer spaces. Recently, researchers from a variety of disciplines have displayed increased scholarly interest in Grindr. Despite this much needed attention, few studies before this thesis have examined Grindr’s material structure—its interface, scripts, and other design features—as rhetorical and worthy of analysis. I document and interrogate my own experiences as a user of the application, adding a humanistic perspective to current conversations about Grindr to demonstrate one potential approach to critiquing mobile media that extends the “field” of …

Cooking Without Women: The Rhetoric Of The New Culinary Male, Casey R. Kelly

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Casey Kelly's contribution to Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Volume 12, Issue 2.

Shaved Or Saved? Disciplining Women’S Bodies, Casey R. Kelly, Kristen Hoerl

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Proponents of sexual liberation and abstinence-until-marriage advocates appear to be on opposing ends of the sociopolitical spectrum; however, both are invested in the regulation of women’s vaginas. We argue that the rhetoric of both communities produces the same disciplinary configuration for the control of women’s bodies. Both communities instruct women that the appearance of a prepubescent and pure vagina is essential to sexual appeal and self-care. Whether sex positive or sex negative, both communities articulate a model of sexual health that negates women’s status as active, desiring subjects. Ultimately, we argue that public scrutiny of women’s vaginas implicitly and overtly …

Cliteracy And Justice For All : A Critical Rhetorical Analysis Of Sophia Wallace’S Cliteracy Campaign, Vanessa Condon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Female sexuality is constantly restricted in public discourse in the United States. To combat this, Sophia Wallace created the Cliteracy campaign: a project that sought to challenge the stigmatization of female genitals. Wallace’s attempt to create a new language regarding female sex and sexuality revealed critical implications for how we discuss sex in American culture. For an in depth analysis, I utilized feminist, materialist, and social movement rhetorical lenses. This study revealed that while text is viewed as an objective mode of communication, however, it is ingrained with hierarchical societal constraints. Moreover, Wallace’s rhetoric suggested that a god term is …

Mythic Rhetoric: Love, Power, And Companionate Marriage In Puccini's Turandot, Valerie V. Peterson

Peer Reviewed Articles

Using a rhetorical perspective, specifically Kenneth Burke's understanding of myths as "forward looking partisanships," this essay explores the mythic story of Turandot and its relationship to love, power, and companionate marriage.1 First, Burke’s understanding of myth is outlined and connected to the history and travels of Turandot. Then, a detailed rhetorical analysis of the 1998 PBS video of Puccini's opera performed at the Forbidden City, Beijing, suggests why the Turandot myth seems to appear in certain places and moments, and what it might have offered to audiences, in this instance, on a spiritual level.

As Seen On Twitter: African-American Rhetorical Traditions Gone Viral, Tiffani Long

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This communication research study identifies the presence of the African-American rhetorical traditions of call-response, signification, tonal semantics, and narrative sequencing used in communication on the online social media network, Twitter. The objective of this study is to provide insight into the culture and community of Twitter. Additionally, the research demonstrates how traditional oral rhetorical traditions survive in the digital world. Over a 15-day period, tweets were collected by the author using a computer screenshot feature. Using a coding rubric, three coders, including the author, coded the collected tweets for the four rhetorical traditions. Resulting from this procedure, the coders concluded …

Hoodie Today, Gown Tomorrow: An Ideological Rhetorical Analysis Of Gender-Neutral Clothing, Meridith Irene Styer

Masters Theses

The fields of psychology and sociology have long understood the importance of clothing in self-formation, this study extrapolates this social-science understanding into the realm of rhetorical analysis. This study looks at gender-neutral clothing and its role in meaning making and self identification for women. With a rhetorical basis from Richards and Ogden, this research uses the feminist works of Brummett and Butler to uncover both the positive and negatives effects of gender-neutral clothing on a woman's self-identification and perceptions. Through the presentation of a diffuse narrative and evaluation of the same, gender-neutral clothing is read and decoded for meaning. This …

Using The 2008 Presidential Election To Think About “Playing The Race Card”, Ronald Lee, Aysel Morin

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Bill Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro were accused of “playing the race card” during the 2008 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. This essay explores the different forms race cards may assume and the dangers each poses to the public dialogue. Moving away from the traditional focus on persuasive effects, the Clinton and Ferraro utterances are analyzed as argumentative discourses. Then, critical standards are promulgated for evaluating their reasonableness.