Matching Items (8)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Rhetoric
- Creators: Brouwer, Daniel
Description
This dissertation explores the discursive construction of work and family identities in the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulatory rulemaking process. It uses dramatism and public sphere theory along with the critical legal rhetoric perspective to analyze official FMLA legal texts as well as over 4,600 public comments submitted in response to the United States Department of Labor's 2008 notice of proposed rulemaking that ultimately amended the existing FMLA administrative regulations. The analysis in this dissertation concludes that when official and vernacular discourses intersect in a rulemaking process facilitated by the state, the facilitated public that emerges in that discourse is bounded by official discourses and appropriated language. But individuals in the process are able to convey and contest a range of work and family identities that include characteristics of public, private, abuse, accountability, sacrifice, and struggle. It further demonstrates that different circumferences for crafting work and family identities exist in the regulatory rulemaking process, including national, international, and time-bounded circumferences. Because the law is a discourse that has far-reaching rhetorical implications and the intersect between vernacular discourses and legal discourses is an underexplored area in both communication and legal studies, this dissertation offers a contribution to the ongoing work of scholars thinking about work and family identities, the material consequences of the intersect of work and family, and the rhetorical implications of legal discourse.
ContributorsDavis, Kirsten (Author) / Carlson, Adina (Thesis advisor) / Brouwer, Daniel (Committee member) / Sigler, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The People's Republic of China's inexorable ascendancy has become an epochal event in international landscape, accentuated by its triple national ceremonies of global significance: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 2009 Beijing Military Parade, and 2010 Shanghai World Expo. At a momentous juncture when the PRC endeavored to project a new national identity to the outside world, these ceremonial occasions constitute a high-stake communicative opportunity for the Chinese government and a fruitful set of discursive artifacts for symbolic deconstruction and rhetorical interpretation. To unravel these ceremonial spectacles, a public memory approach, with its versatile potencies indexical of a nation's interpretive system of social meaning, its normative framework of ideological model, and its past-present-future interrelationships, is contextually, conceptually, and analytically diagnostic of a rising China's sociopolitical constellations. Thus employing public memory as a conceptual-methodological matrix, my dissertation focuses on the prominent texts in these ceremonies, excavates their historico-memorial invocation and sociocultural persuasion, and plumbs their discursive agenda, rhetorical operation, and sociopolitical implication. I argue that the Chinese government deliberately and forcefully strove for three interrelated communicative objectives at these three ceremonies--re-imaging, re-asserting, and re-anchoring its national identity as an ancient, emergent superpower. Yet in contemporary Chinese context, its discursive (con)quest to recast its leadership as a historically continuous, culturally orthodox, and ideologically legitimate regime has always been compromised by its mythologized historical representation and hegemonic rhetorical reconfiguration, countervailed by its political and ideological fragility, and contested by domestic and global publics. Besides its contributions to the current conversation on the PRC's ceremonial phenomena, discursive formations, and communicative dynamics, this dissertation further offers its diagnosis and prognostication of this projected leading country in the 21st century.
ContributorsGong, Jie (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Wu, Xu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis examines the rhetoric that binds the Grateful Dead Community, a collective of millions who participate in the musical rituals surrounding the San Francisco-based band. The study analyzes multiple rhetorical spaces found within the Grateful Dead Community, the way in which the community hierarchy influences discourse, and the patterns in rhetoric found within the discourse in the community’s spaces. Through analysis of the lyrics, interviews with community leaders, and interactions among community members, the thesis uses the Grateful Dead Community as a foundation for exploring the function of rhetoric in community building and how different, sometimes contradictory types of rhetoric can bind communities—especially communities that exist without geographically-defined territory. This essay aims to fill a research gap by taking already existing theories on conflicting forms of rhetoric within communities and fortifying them by applying them to a modern context, specifically with the Grateful Dead Community.
ContributorsLane, Thomas Paul (Author) / Webb, Patricia (Thesis advisor) / Lamp, Kathleen S. (Committee member) / Hannah, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
This dissertation theorizes Bad Faith Rhetorics, or, rhetorical gestures that work to derail, block, or otherwise stymy knowledge-building efforts. This work explores the ways that interventions against existing social hierarchies (i.e., feminist and antiracist interventions) build knowledge (that is, are epistemologically active), and the ways that bad faith rhetorics derail such interventions. This dissertation demonstrates how bad faith rhetorics function to defend the status quo, with its social stratification by race, gender, class, and other intersectional axes of identity. Bad faith argumentative maneuvers are abundant in online environments. Consequently, this dissertation offers two case studies of the comment sections of two TED Talks: Mellody Hobson’s “Color Blind or Color Brave?” and Juno Mac’s “The Laws that Sex Workers Really Want.” The central analyses deploy online ethnographic field methods and close reading to characterize bad faith rhetorical responses and to identify 1.) trends in such responses, 2.) the net effects on other conversational participants, and 3.) bad faith rhetoric mitigation strategies. This work engages Sartre’s work on Bad Faith, rhetoric scholarship on the knowledge-building affordances of argument, public sphere theory, critical race studies, and feminist scholarship. This dissertation’s theorization and case studies illustrate the pitfalls of specific counterproductive argumentative tactics that block progress toward more equitable ways of being (bad faith rhetorics), and makes several preliminary recommendations for mitigating such moves.
ContributorsFulton-Babicke, Holly Lynn (Author) / Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Brouwer, Daniel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This research works from in an institutional ethnographic methodology. From this grounded approach, it describes the dialectic between the individual and the discourse of the institution. This work develops a complex picture of the multifarious ways in which institutional discourse has real effects on the working lives of graduate teaching associates (GTAs) and administrative staff and faculty in Arizona State University's Department of English. Beginning with the experiences of individuals as they described in their interviews, provided an opportunity to understand individual experiences connected by threads of institutional discourse. The line of argumentation that developed from this grounded institutional ethnographic approach proceeds thusly: 1) If ASU’s institutional discourse is understood as largely defined by ASU’s Charter as emphasizing access and academic excellence, then it is possible to 2) see how the Charter affects the departmental discourse in the Department of English. This is shown by 3) explaining the ways in which institutional discourse—in conjunction with disciplinary discourses—affects the flow of power for administrative faculty and manifests as, for example, the Writing Programs Mission and Goals. These manifestations then 4) shape the training in the department to enculturate GTAs and other Writing Programs teachers, which finally 5) affects how Writing Programs teachers structure their courses consequently affecting the undergraduate online learning experience. This line of argumentation illustrates how the flow of power in administrative faculty positions like the Department Chair and Writing Program Administrator are institution-specific, entangled with the values of the institution and the forms of institutional discourse including departmental training impact the teaching practices of GTAs. And, although individual work like that done by the WPA to maintain teacher autonomy and the GTAs to facilitate individual access in their online classrooms, the individual is ultimately lost in the larger institutional conversation of access. Finally, this research corroborates work by Sara Ahmed and Stephanie L. Kerschbaum who explain how institutions co-opt intersectional terms such as diversity and access, and that neoliberal institutions' use of these terms are disingenuous, improving not the quality of instruction or university infrastructure but rather the reputation and public appeal of the university.
ContributorsOakley, Abigail (Author) / Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Gee, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Brouwer, Daniel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
"Bringing-before-the-eyes": Visuality and Audience in Greek Rhetoric examines how Greek rhetorical theories are understood through the lens of visuality and the ways in which orators accounted for audience knowledges and expectations in the creation of rhetorical texts and performances. Through a close reading of Greek rhetorical texts from the classical period, I develop three heuristics for analyzing the ways in which rhetoricians invite and encourage visualized images through rhetorical practice.
By exploring (1) language cues that orators use to signal visualization, (2) the ways in which shared cultural memories and ideas allow orators to call upon standardized images, and (3) the influence of stylistic choices and audience emotions related to the vividness of rhetorical images, I argue that it is possible to analyze the ways in which classical Greek orators understood and employed visual elements in their rhetorical performances. I then conduct an analysis of the visual aspects of Demosthenes' On the Embassy using these heuristics to demonstrate the ways in which these three aspects of visuality are intertwined and contribute to a greater understanding of the relationship between the verbal and the visual in rhetorical theory.
My findings indicate that Greek orators readily identified the influence of visual ways of knowing on rhetorical theory and presented early hypotheses of the ways in which sense perceptions affect social practice. This project complicates the ways in which rhetorical theory is categorized. Rather than considering visual rhetoric as a distinct field from traditional, verbal text-based rhetorical studies, this project explores the ways in which visual and verbal modes of thinking are interconnected in Greek rhetorical theory. By bridging these two areas of rhetorical study and arguing that verbal rhetoric can instantiate internalized, visual phenomena for audiences, the dichotomy of verbal and visual is problematized. By focusing on the rhetorical theory of classical Greece, this project also invites future research into the ways in which dominant, Western historic and contemporary systems of epistemology are influenced by the co-mingling of verbal and visual in classical Greek philosophy and education.
By exploring (1) language cues that orators use to signal visualization, (2) the ways in which shared cultural memories and ideas allow orators to call upon standardized images, and (3) the influence of stylistic choices and audience emotions related to the vividness of rhetorical images, I argue that it is possible to analyze the ways in which classical Greek orators understood and employed visual elements in their rhetorical performances. I then conduct an analysis of the visual aspects of Demosthenes' On the Embassy using these heuristics to demonstrate the ways in which these three aspects of visuality are intertwined and contribute to a greater understanding of the relationship between the verbal and the visual in rhetorical theory.
My findings indicate that Greek orators readily identified the influence of visual ways of knowing on rhetorical theory and presented early hypotheses of the ways in which sense perceptions affect social practice. This project complicates the ways in which rhetorical theory is categorized. Rather than considering visual rhetoric as a distinct field from traditional, verbal text-based rhetorical studies, this project explores the ways in which visual and verbal modes of thinking are interconnected in Greek rhetorical theory. By bridging these two areas of rhetorical study and arguing that verbal rhetoric can instantiate internalized, visual phenomena for audiences, the dichotomy of verbal and visual is problematized. By focusing on the rhetorical theory of classical Greece, this project also invites future research into the ways in which dominant, Western historic and contemporary systems of epistemology are influenced by the co-mingling of verbal and visual in classical Greek philosophy and education.
ContributorsChappelow, Brent D (Author) / Rose, Shirley K. (Thesis advisor) / Lamp, Kathleen S. (Thesis advisor) / Goggin, Maureen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Scholarship on the rhetoric of place and space provides ample precedent for the study of structures as rhetorical texts; real and imagined places which convey meaning or memory, particularly monuments, memorials, and museums have been extensively studied, but loci of identity and history in institutions of higher education are under- examined. The following analysis of Arizona State University's Old Main building seeks to fill a gap in the study of place and space. As an entity which produces its own powerful discourses, Arizona State University expresses its historicity and institutional goals through varied and numerous media, but Old Main is one of the most critical, for the structure acts as an ethical proof in ASU's argument for its character, endurance, and worth. This examination addresses how ASU's ethos is articulated through the experiences of Old Main's past and current users, the instructional historical texts and artifacts displayed in the structure, the way that the building is mediated by ASU discourses, and the agency of the edifice itself. This work endeavors to answer Henri Lefebvre's call to improve widespread understanding of spaces as texts and their dialogue with users, and builds on the work of Carol Blair, Richard P. Dober, Diane Favro, and Bruno Latour, as well as that of Henri Lefebvre. To provide full context, this analysis integrates scholarship from the disciplines of campus planning, architecture, classical rhetoric, and the rhetoric of place and space.
ContributorsFulton, Holly Lynn (Author) / Lamp, Kathleen S. (Thesis advisor) / Goggin, Maureen (Committee member) / Rose, Shirley K. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
There has been a robust and ongoing investment in demystifying the discursive and material conditions of neoliberalism. Scholars in communication have done much work to explore the various rhetorical effects and processes of neoliberal discourses and practices. Many of these case studies have tethered their concerns of neoliberalism to the conceptualization of the public sphere. However, most of this research rests on the absence of those that try to “make do.” By privileging rhetoric after the fact, such studies tend to provide more agency to ideology than everyday bodies that engage in their own rhetorical judgments and discernments. In addition, scholarship across the board tends to treat neoliberalism as something dangerously and uniquely new. This framing effectively serves to ignore the longer history of liberalism and liberal thought that paved the path of neoliberalism the United States is now on.
With these two broad concerns in mind, this study centers a case study of a charter school in South Phoenix to focus on the vernacular rhetorics of those on the ground. Guided by public sphere theory, critical race theory, and intersectionality, I take up rhetorical field methods to explore how those involved with this charter school navigate and make sense of school choice and charter schools in the age of neoliberalism. Within this context, field methods permit me to locate the various discourses, practices, and material constraints that shape running, being educated at, and selecting a charter school. These various rhetorical practices brought to the forefront an interest and concern with the school’s whole child approach as it is rooted within Stephen Covey’s (1989) seven habits. Additional qualitative data analysis brings about two new concepts of neoliberal scapegoating and dialectical vernacular complicity. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings as they speak to how rhetorical field methods, supported by intersectionality and critical race theory, invites critics to center more agency on people rather than ideas, and how that makes for a more complicated and nuanced neoliberal reality and modes of resistance.
With these two broad concerns in mind, this study centers a case study of a charter school in South Phoenix to focus on the vernacular rhetorics of those on the ground. Guided by public sphere theory, critical race theory, and intersectionality, I take up rhetorical field methods to explore how those involved with this charter school navigate and make sense of school choice and charter schools in the age of neoliberalism. Within this context, field methods permit me to locate the various discourses, practices, and material constraints that shape running, being educated at, and selecting a charter school. These various rhetorical practices brought to the forefront an interest and concern with the school’s whole child approach as it is rooted within Stephen Covey’s (1989) seven habits. Additional qualitative data analysis brings about two new concepts of neoliberal scapegoating and dialectical vernacular complicity. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings as they speak to how rhetorical field methods, supported by intersectionality and critical race theory, invites critics to center more agency on people rather than ideas, and how that makes for a more complicated and nuanced neoliberal reality and modes of resistance.
ContributorsHanna, Katrina (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Hess, Aaron (Thesis advisor) / Powers, Jeanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020