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abstract: The struggle of the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) to make space for women’s history in the United States is in important ways emblematic of the struggle for recognition and status of American women as a whole. Working at the intersections of digital-material memory production and using the NWHM as a focus, this dissertation examines the significance of the varied strategies used by and contexts among which the NWHM and entities like it negotiate for digital, material, and rhetorical space within U.S. public memory production. As a “cybermuseum,” the NWHM functions within national public memory production at the intersections of material and digital culture; yet as an activist institution in search of a permanent, physical “home” for women’s history, the NWHM also counterproductively reifies existing gendered norms that make such an achievement difficult. By examining selected aspects of this complexly situated entity, this dissertation makes visible the gendered nature of public memory production, the digital and material components of that production, and the hybrid nature of emerging public memory entities which operate simultaneously in multiple spheres. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach and guided by Carole Blair’s work on rhetorical materiality, this dissertation explores key aspects of the NWHM’s process of becoming, including an examination of the centrality of the interpellation of publics to the rhetorical materiality of public discourse; an analysis of the material state of public memory production in national history museums in the U.S.; and an exploration of the embodied engagement that undergirds all interaction with and presentation of historical artifacts and narratives, whether digital, physical or both at once. In a synthesis of findings, this dissertation describes a set of key characteristics through which certain hybrid digital-material entities (including the NWHM) enact increasingly complex variations of rhetorical agency. These characteristics suggest a need for a more flexible analytic framework, described in the final chapter. This framework takes shape as an heuristic of functions across which digital-material entities always already enact a situated, active, embodied, and simultaneous agency, one that can account fully for the rhetorical processes through which space is “made” for women in U.S. public memory. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

abstract: This dissertation explores findings from a year-long investigation of the context-driven practices, strategies and beliefs of five multilingual Cultural Health Navigators (CHNs) working in a local pediatrics clinic serving large numbers of refugee families from a variety of cultural backgrounds who are experiencing a range of healthcare challenges. Grounded in a methodology of engagement (Grabill, 2010), this inquiry systematically documents and analyzes the range of ways in which the CHNs assist refugee families and their healthcare providers, their rationale for the decisions made and actions taken, and their concerns about the challenges they encounter. I show that while much of what the CHNs do to assist refugee families and their healthcare providers is routine and can be expected, CHNs also tend to manage complex work involved in mediating refugee families’ interactions with healthcare providers and the healthcare system in ways that cannot always be anticipated in advance. Through a close analysis of their practices and reflections, I show how their various interactions, actions and decisions are responsive to specifics of the situation at hand, informed by their lived experiences as CHNs and immigrants/refugees, and influenced by a dynamic, emergent and embodied notion of context. The findings of this study demonstrate how the CHNs’ collective and distributed knowledge production work shapes experiences with acquiring health literacy, and the material consequences of such efforts and practices. Drawing on ethnographic research methods and critical-incident methodologies that involved the CHNs in the inquiry process, this study provides a nuanced analysis of the different kinds of work they do, the constraints they encounter, and how they creatively respond to such constraints in real time. The findings demonstrate that a collaborative engagement with critical incidents as a method of intercultural inquiry facilitates a more robust and dynamic understanding of the distributed nature of decision-making practices and ways of knowing. Embodying sensitivity to situated ways of knowing and dynamic practices in institutional settings, this study demonstrates the value of combining social science methodologies with rhetorical inquiry methods to conduct interdisciplinary and cross-institutional research to address pressing social problems in ways that benefit historically marginalized groups. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2018

Although there has been an outpouring of scholarship on the "rhetorical body" in the last two decades, nearly all analyzes and critiques discourses about the body. Very little work in contemporary rhetorical studies addresses the ways in which rhetoric affects and alters the central nervous system, and thereby exerts influence at a level of subjective experience prior to cognitive and linguistic apprehension. Recent neuroscientific research into affect, identity, and decision-making echoes many of the claims made by ancient rhetoricians: namely, that rhetorical activity is corporeally transformative, and that the material transformations wrought by rhetoric have profound implications for subjects' capacity to engage in critical thought and agential judgment. This study demonstrates that emotional political rhetoric is physiologically addictive, that the brain and body can make decisions independently of the will of the thinking subject, and that symbolic violence can physically reconfigure the neural networks that make critical cognition possible. As public culture and discourse becomes increasingly imagistic, non-rational, and emotionally charged, critics must develop theoretical resources capable of recognizing and responding to new varieties of constitutive phenomena. Neuroscience can supplement traditional rhetorical criticism by offering insight into the physiological processes by which destructive ideas become self-sustaining, and it can help critics devise more sophisticated rhetorical approaches to the task of promoting social healing. To advance this conversation, this dissertation outlines a critical neurorhetorical theory that is attuned to the Sophistic and Burkean rhetorical tradition, informed by contemporary neuroscience, and responsive to the unique cultural and social conditions of the 21st century.

Arab Palestinians in Israel live under highly complex circumstances. In 1948, when they became Israeli citizens, they found themselves facing challenges at different levels: national, social, political, financial, educational, as well as the very challenge of existence. The Palestinian community in Israel underwent various stages of development and witnessed major events under the new Israeli rule, bringing about fundamental changes in their lives, their attitudes, and consequently, their rhetoric. Arab politicians, particularly those who represent Arab Palestinians in the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), often find themselves compelled to adjust the approach and rhetoric they use to address the Arab public. They do it not only to satisfy the Arab public's expectations, but also to adapt to the ever-changing Israeli political atmosphere and to avoid conflict with the Jewish public, the majority of whom, as polls indicate, are not happy about Arab representation in the Israeli Knesset. Discussion of the rhetoric used by the Arab parties in Israel that represent the Palestinian people who before 1948 were a majority and after that year became a minority that suffers inequality, oppression, and discrimination, is important in order to understand how argumentation and methods of persuasion are influenced by the kind of circumstances that national minorities like Palestinians in Israel experience. This thesis will examine the rhetoric used by the main Arab political movements in Israel when addressing several key issues that are currently the subject of heated debate and are expected to have remarkable effects on Arabs and their lives as non-Jews in the Israeli state. These issues are: Arab representation in the Israeli Parliament, recognition of Israel as a "Jewish State", and National Service for Arabs. The largest part of the research will focus on the Arab representation in the Knesset, being the most controversial topic among the Arab minority in Israel, and which also determines to a great extent the positions of the parties on other issues. After reviewing the position of each party/political movement on each of these topics, I intend to analyze the rhetoric each of them uses to defend their position or promote it to gain the support of the public, especially during parliamentary elections. Is the rhetoric of Arab parties in Israel coherent and harmonious as it represents a Palestinian minority dealing with Israeli policies as a collective entity, or does each of the parties have a unique rhetoric of its own, based on its ideology and agendas? What are the arguments that these parties use to justify their views, and how do they present these arguments? Are the arguments used by each party from the deliberative branch of rhetoric, the forensic, or the epideictic? Do Arab politicians mostly use ethos, pathos, or logos to persuade the audience and gain their support? This thesis will answer these questions by analyzing the parties' publications and official statements and political charters, and it will show that the positions, the rhetoric, and the argumentation of the different Arab parties are far from being homogeneous, and are highly influenced by their ideological background.

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This study investigates the dynamics of critical thinking in an introductory writing class that incorporated disability studies (DS) through a critical-pedagogy approach. Critical thinking, as I define it, is the process by which subjects become more aware of their own positions, others' positions, and the ways those positions are shaped by discourses. The course, themed “Exploring Normalcy,” aimed to teach critical thinking by questioning knowledges and assumptions around gender, class, and race, as well as disability. As a teacher-researcher, I both observed and taught the course during the Fall semester 2002. Observation, group and individual interviews, and text analysis were used to investigate how students' critical thinking operated in the classroom. Seven students volunteered to participate in the post-classroom phase of the study. After preliminary text analysis and a group interview, I selected three “focal students,” who occupied a range of positions in relation to disability discourses, for individual interviews and further text analysis. Focal students' texts were analyzed using an adaptation of critical discourse analysis as described by Norman Fairclough and Ellen Barton. Interview transcripts were analyzed by identifying and grouping patterns and themes. Analysis of students' written work and reflections on that work indicate that their critical thinking evolved in a complex pattern affected by factors including students' self-identifications; discourses students inhabited before, during and after the course; and the passage of time between drafts of a project and reflections on that project. While usually viewed as a “skill” that can be discerned and evaluated within a single artifact (e.g., the final draft of a paper), in fact critical thinking is better understood when viewed as a process that emerges through the evolution of a series of texts. Therefore, pedagogical suggestions include assigning a variety of written tasks (e.g., short/long, or low-stakes/high-stakes); working in a variety of modes (e.g., written, oral, graphic); involving discussion with peers and teacher at multiple points during the larger project; and asking students to reflect upon and revise their ideas as they develop. This study substantiates claims made by disability-studies scholars that DS can prompt critical thinking while emphasizing the need for ongoing study of the ways DS and critical thinking interact in specific contexts. Critical thinking is a viable goal in the writing classroom, but we must remember it is characterized by diffuse effects through a student's ways of knowing, both during a course and after it ends.

abstract: This dissertation proposes the concept of “the open hand” as a philosophy of openness. The need for a philosophy of openness is derived from the contemporary turn towards things that is anchored in continental thought, but is at work in a variety of disciplines. This current interest in things has stirred the critique that the normalized human grasp on things is deficient because it cannot suitably handle the reality that intangible depth inheres in all things human and nonhuman. From the pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 and its disease COVID-19 to issues of social justice, the need to make room for the abyssal side of things is as compelling as ever. However, accommodating the deep reality of all things is complicated by the fact that it requires an orientation not guided by self-centered insularity, but by a serviceable theory of self-emptying openness. Sketching a philosophy of openness with the open hand, this dissertation reveals that while openness to things is critical for solving the complex issues of the twenty-first century, its opposition not only has existential primacy, but also can be and has been exacerbated by humanity’s contemporary technological lifestyle. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2020

Includes bibliographical references. / The annual national Budget Speeches made by the Ministers of Finance of South Africa are epideictic (ceremonious) speeches that praise the government's economic policy for the coming year, recommend it to the nation, and also present the proposed Budget to the world. This speech contains information that is the policy of the government since it is ultimately written into law and so affects the fortunes of every citizen of South Africa. The Ministers of Finance have to persuade the nation to adopt a plan for distributing the wealth of the nation which becomes a greatly significant exercise in the context of a developing third world country like South Africa where there is still great inequality. The Ministers of Finance do this by using ceremonious rhetoric that attempts to unite the people of South Africa under a common vision for the economy. In this thesis, I provide an analysis of the political rhetoric of four Budget Speeches of South Africa, each selected because of their importance in the various stages of South Africa's political history. This thesis is not an economic analysis; it is a rhetorical analysis of the speeches since the technique of rhetoric is used to analyse the Budget Speech. The selection of speeches is as follows: the Budget Speech of 1985 represents the apartheid era, even though at that time there were some moves towards reform. The peculiar two-pronged apartheid rhetoric of providing a place for all South Africans, of working together to build the nation and the economy, while there is still racial oppression is present in the introduction and conclusion of this speech. With the development of negotiations in the early 1990s which culminated in the first democratically elected Government of National Unity in 1994, the Budget Speeches of 1993 and 1994 became more representative of the interests of all South African citizens. In these speeches there is the rhetoric of hope for the future, transparency and nation-building. The 2002 Budget Speech represents a mature Budget Speech of a post-1994 South Africa where a democratically elected majority black party is in power. In the 2002 speech there is the rhetoric of solidarity, poverty and nation building. In the chapters containing the rhetorical analysis for each speech there is a description of the rhetorical situation, a summary of the speech, and then an analysis of the inventio, dispositio, and elocutio of the speech. In the final section of the thesis I provide a comparison of the four speeches analysed. Included in this dissertation are illustrations of the Ministers of Finance, the official print version of their speeches, a selection of media articles published on or around the day that each of the Budget Speeches were delivered, and also the transcripts of two interviews that I conducted with two of the former Ministers of Finance.

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