Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Rhetoric--Political aspects.
- Creators: Miller, Keith
Description
Rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke has asserted the significance of paying equal, if not more attention to, propagandist rhetoric, arguing that "there are other ways of burning books on the pyre-and the favorite method of the hasty reviewer is to deprive himself and his readers by inattention." Despite Burke's exhortation, attention to white supremacist discourse has been relatively meager. Historians Clive Webb and Charles Eagles have called for further research on white supremacy arguing that attention to white supremacist discourse is important both to fully understand and appreciate pro-civil rights rhetoric in context and to develop a more complex understanding of white supremacist rhetoric. This thesis provides a close examination of the literature and rhetoric of two white supremacist organizations: the Citizens' Council, an organization that sprang up in response to the 1954 landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education and Stromfront.org, a global online forum community that hosts space for supporters of white supremacy. Memory scholars Barbie Zelizer, John Bodnar, and Stephen Brown note the usability of memory to shape social, political, and cultural aspects of society and the potential implications of such shaping. Drawing from this scholarship, the analysis of these texts focuses specifically on the rhetorical shaping of memory as a vehicle to promote white supremacy. Through an analysis of the Citizens' Council's use of historical events, national figures and cultural stereotypes, Chapter 1 explicates the organization's attempt to form a memorial narrative that worked to promote political goals, create a sense of solidarity through resistance, and indoctrinate the youth in the ideology of white supremacy. Chapter 2 examines the rhetorical use of memory on Stormfront and explains how the website capitalizes upon the wide reaching global impact of World War II to construct a memorial narrative that can be accessed by a global audience of white supremacists. Ultimately, this thesis offers a focused review of the rhetorical signatures of two white supremacist groups with the aim of combating contemporary instantiations of racist discourse.
ContributorsLadenburg, Kenneth (Author) / Ore, Ersula (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Bebout, Lee (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the literate practices of women reading and writing in the press during the civil rights movement in the 1950s/60s. Through a textual analysis of literacy events (Heath) in the memoirs of Sarah Patton Boyle (The Desegregated Heart: A Virginian's Stand in Time of Transition), Anne Braden (The Wall Between), Daisy Bates (The Long Shadow of Little Rock) and Melba Pattillo Beals (Warriors Don't Cry), this dissertation highlights the participatory roles women played in the movement, including their ability to act publicly in a movement remembered mostly for its male leaders. Contributing to scholarship focused on the literate lives of women, this study focuses on the uses of literacy in the lives of four women with particular emphasis on the women's experiences with the literacy they practice. Drawing on ideological views of literacy (Gee, Street) and research focused on the social, cultural and economic influences of such practices (Brandt), the women's memoirs served as the site for collecting and analyzing the women's responses and reactions to literacy events with the press. Through an application of Deborah Brandt's notion of sponsor, literacy events between the women and the press were recorded and the data analyzed to understand the relationship the women had with the literacy available and the role the sponsor (the press) played in shaping the practice and the literate identities of the women. Situated in the racist climate of the Jim Crow South in the 1950s/60s and the secondary role women played in the movement, the women's memoirs and the data analyzed revealed the role the women's perception of the practice, shaped by personal history and lived experiences, played in how the women experienced and used their literacy. This dissertation argues that their responses to literacy events and their perceptions of the power of their reading and writing highlight the significant public role women played in the movement and argues that, although the women remain relatively unremembered participants of the movement, their memoirs act as artifacts of that time and proof of the meaningful public contributions women made to the movement.
ContributorsAdams, Kelly R (Author) / Goggin, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
At its core, this dissertation is a study of how one group of ordinary people attempted to make change in their local and national community by reframing a public debate. Since 1993, over five thousand undocumented migrants have died, mostly of dehydration, while attempting to cross the US/Mexico border. Volunteers for No More Deaths (NMD), a humanitarian group in Tucson, hike the remote desert trails of the southern Arizona desert and provide food, water, and first aid to undocumented migrants in medical distress. They believe that their actions reduce suffering and deaths in the desert. On December 4, 2008, Walt Staton, a NMD volunteer placed multiple one-gallon jugs of water on a known migrant trail, and a Fish and Wildlife officer on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge near Arivaca, Arizona cited him for littering. Staton refused to pay the fine, believing that he was providing life-saving humanitarian aid, and was taken to court as a result. His trial from June 1-3, 2009 is the main focus of this dissertation. The dissertation begins by tracing the history of the rhetorical marker "illegal" and its role in the deaths of thousands of "illegal" immigrants. Then, it outlines the history of NMD, from its roots in the Sanctuary Movement to its current operation as a counterpublic discursively subverting the state. Next, it examines Staton's trial as a postmodern rhetorical situation, where subjects negotiate their rhetorical agency with the state. Finally, it measures the rhetorical effect of NMD's actions by tracing humanitarian and human rights ideographs in online discussion boards before and after Staton's sentencing. The study finds that despite situational restrictions, as the postmodern critique suggests, subjects are still able to identify and engage with rhetorical opportunities, and in doing so can still subvert the state.
ContributorsAccardi, Steven (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011