The present dissertation is a study of the process of national identity renegotiation in modern Russia. More specifically, I analyze the use of the word fascism in contemporary Russian discourse. Developing a blend of Kenneth Burke’s theory of human motives and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the subject, I compare the psycho-rhetorical narratives of the four distinct parties - Vladimir Putin, state-sponsored “anti-fascists” (Nashi), independent anti-fascists (Antifa), and neo-fascists - which fight over the usage of the word fascism in their attempts to renegotiate the meaning of Russianness. While explicating the mechanism of national identity construction, Lacan’s theory, as I argue, does not help distinguish among various visions of the nation. Therefore, I build upon Burke’s classification of symbolic frames (comedy, tragedy, epic, elegy, satire, the burlesque, and the grotesque) to differentiate among alternative fantasy-frames (Lacanian fantasy and Burkean frame) as more or less politically dangerous and ethically sophisticated. As the reading of the four psycho-rhetorical narratives shows, the vision of Russia proposed by Russian neo-fascists dangerously approximates the Russian idea promoted by the state and pro-Putin “anti-fascists.”

The purpose of this study is to apply Kenneth Burke's dramatistic method' of analysis to Tennessee Williams' play The Night of the Iguana.

The purpose of the study has been to analyze the rhetoric of Malcolm X with Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad in order to gain a better understanding of Malcolm X's rhetorical strategies in providing answers to given situations. One speech, determined to be typical of Malcolm X during the last phase of his life, was chosen for the analysis. It was the speech delivered on December 20, 1964, during the visit of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party candidate for the Senate.

In this study, Kenneth Burke's methods of dramatistic analysis is applied to the selected poetry of Nikki Giovanni, a Black contemporary female poet. The procedure, analysis of poetry for symbolic action, is a functional approach which focuses on the poetic language, Agency. The thesis, divided into four chapters, concentrates on discovery of the Purpose, a Black female motive, for the Act, Giovanni's poetry, in the Scene, contemporary Black America.

This thesis focuses on ways that rhetorical theory can assist in better understanding the dysfunctions of the modern organizational environment. At its root, organizational dysfunction refers to those parts of our organizations that do not function as we think they should. Dysfunction points to actions of organizational members that defies and violates shared organizational norms and expectations or core societal values, mores and standards of proper conduct.1 As an element of focus, this thesis uses Kenneth Burkes theory of dramatism and dramatistic methods such as pentadic criticism and cluster criticism to analyze leadership actions within the fictional BBC television programme The Office. Using The Office as a representative case study, the analysis applies Burkes theories, and particularly the pentadic elements of Agent, Scene, and Act to gain a more complete picture of the role an office manager can play in an organizations dysfunction. A more complete picture can then assist in finding solutions to that dysfunction.<p> Burkes methods allow for a critic to gain multiple perspectives on the same situation by attributing different terms of the pentad to the same elements of the situation being described. When looking for causes of dysfunction in an organization, often formal leaders are held accountable. But what does it mean to blame the leader? What specific role have they played in the dysfunction? Using Burkes pentad, this thesis explores three roles that office manager David Brent plays in the organizational dysfunction.<p> The first chapter explores office leader Brent as an Agent of dysfunction and analyzes his own dysfunctions in order to understand the offices dysfunctions. The second chapter looks at the ramifications for labeling Brent as part of the Scene and analyzes how Brent and other scenic elements combine to create office dysfunction. In the final analysis chapter, Brent is labeled as an Act of dysfunction himself which positions Brent as a mere symptom of a larger dysfunction within the organization. The perspectives are combined and contrasted to reveal insights that may have been previously hidden proving that rhetorical theory is a valuable approach to better understand organizations and the people within them.<p> 1 Y. Vardi and Y. Weiner. Misbehaviour in Organizations: A Motivational Framework, Organizational Science, (7,1996) 151-65.

This thesis focuses on ways that rhetorical theory can assist in better understanding the dysfunctions of the modern organizational environment. At its root, organizational dysfunction refers to those parts of our organizations that do not function as we think they should. Dysfunction points to actions of organizational members that defies and violates shared organizational norms and expectations or core societal values, mores and standards of proper conduct.1 As an element of focus, this thesis uses Kenneth Burkes theory of dramatism and dramatistic methods such as pentadic criticism and cluster criticism to analyze leadership actions within the fictional BBC television programme The Office. Using The Office as a representative case study, the analysis applies Burkes theories, and particularly the pentadic elements of Agent, Scene, and Act to gain a more complete picture of the role an office manager can play in an organizations dysfunction. A more complete picture can then assist in finding solutions to that dysfunction.<p> Burkes methods allow for a critic to gain multiple perspectives on the same situation by attributing different terms of the pentad to the same elements of the situation being described. When looking for causes of dysfunction in an organization, often formal leaders are held accountable. But what does it mean to blame the leader? What specific role have they played in the dysfunction? Using Burkes pentad, this thesis explores three roles that office manager David Brent plays in the organizational dysfunction.<p> The first chapter explores office leader Brent as an Agent of dysfunction and analyzes his own dysfunctions in order to understand the offices dysfunctions. The second chapter looks at the ramifications for labeling Brent as part of the Scene and analyzes how Brent and other scenic elements combine to create office dysfunction. In the final analysis chapter, Brent is labeled as an Act of dysfunction himself which positions Brent as a mere symptom of a larger dysfunction within the organization. The perspectives are combined and contrasted to reveal insights that may have been previously hidden proving that rhetorical theory is a valuable approach to better understand organizations and the people within them.<p> 1 Y. Vardi and Y. Weiner. Misbehaviour in Organizations: A Motivational Framework, Organizational Science, (7,1996) 151-65.

This essay discusses the aspects of Carnival in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the opposition between ordinary official life and the Carnival. Peter Burke’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories on the Carnival are used throughout the analyse of the poem mainly with focus on four different aspects; food, sex, violence and games. The essay also discusses the questioning of rank, which was central to the spirit of the Carnival where all were considered equal.  Gawain is the protagonist who throughout the poem manages to resist the spirit of the Carnival despite being challenged by three different antagonists who in their on ways symbolise the Carnival; the Green knight with aggressive and mocking speech, the Lady of the Castle who acts as the seducer and Lord Bertilak who in his three hunts shows that he embraces the spirit of the Carnival.

In disease outbreak situations, the media are considered (and relied upon) by authorities to “translate” information across disciplinary boundaries. A reporter covering the 2003 SARS outbreak observed that journalists “are often conscious of their role as participants in a human crisis” (World Health Organization). Consequently, a pandemic presents a unique rhetorical situation to journalists. As significant intermediaries in public health messaging, journalist-rhetors help frame the narrative of a disease outbreak for lay audiences and influence whether those audiences implement protective behavioral changes. While the literature implicitly acknowledges issues of motivation in the media industry as a whole, little work has yet appeared to examine strategies specific to individual acts of reportage. Through comparative analyses of media portrayals of the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak before the nature of the threat became clear, this project explores rhetorical characteristics of the coverage in order to uncover implicit assumptions guiding public understanding of a high-risk health threat. Kenneth Burke’s method of cluster analysis yields insight into the symbolic processes embedded in a rhetorical artefact, enabling an interpretation of the rhetor’s worldview. Resulting worldviews can then be examined through a dramatistic lens. Burke also described the strategic adoption of “role” as an element of symbolic action. This study found that journalists purveyed widely different, even contradictory, worldviews, each with different impacts on audiences in terms of the interpretation and appropriate response to the threat. I argue that such divergences occur due to alienation arising from individual ethos in conflict with formal constraints in the new pandemic “scene.” Responses to alienation manifested in identifiably distinct roles. Identification with a particular role in pandemic reportage was reflected in the terminology of journalists studied. Through clusters of association and dissociation, journalists classed the threat as “mild” and rejected the term “pandemic,” as a serious threat but one that could be managed, or as an apocalyptic threat against which there was no defence, with all stances occurring simultaneously in time. Ramifications for the lay public ranged from the location of protection with public health officials, invitations to engage in processes of Othering, or the amplification of the cataclysmic nature of the scene. As these stances differed in their portrayals of impacts on the lay public and thus ability to motivate behavioral change, an improved understanding of journalistic experience in the pandemic “scene” is crucial to improving communication aiming to protect the health of lay publics.

In this dissertation, I develop a theory of rhetorical catharsis and apply this theory primarily to George W. Bush's rhetoric of the War on Terror in Iraq. Contrary to the standard Aristotelian perspective of catharsis as the "purging of pity and fear" that brings relief and resolution to an audience, I turn to Kenneth Burke's claim that catharsis is tied to the scapegoating process and argue that catharsis is the purging and projection of one's trauma to a victim who serves as the sacrificial vessel for one's pain. I thus redefine catharsis as the purging of trauma that plays a key role in catharsis and leads to the victimage and scapegoating of the Other in language and public life.To explore how rhetorical catharsis functions in language use, I analyze the concept of a rhetorical catharsis through literature, presidential rhetoric, and print media and show how catharsis operates in the rhetoric of war, particularly that of President Bush's war on terror in Iraq. In addition to Kenneth Burke, I draw on scholars such as Rene Girard, Deborah Willis, Terry Eagleton, Robert Ivie, Allen Carter, Robert McChesney, and Bartholomew Sparrow, among many others. I argue that communities experiencing tragedy use language to name people and entire nations as the scapegoat for their ills.By understanding how language makes possible the victimage and scapegoating of vasts groups of people and even entire nations in times of national trauma, I offer ways of speaking about trauma that may help redirect the violent impulse of catharsis.

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the aesthetic strategy of the political philosophy of Edmund Burke, by considering the relation between the "artificial infinite" of the Enquiry Into our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, and the "immemorial custom" of the Reflections on the Revolution in France. The argument addresses misreadings of Burke found in recent critical theories on the "aestheticism" of "bourgeois ideology." / The thesis shows that the demotion of the sublime in favour of the beautiful which is considered by these critics to be characteristic of bourgeois aestheticism, does not happen in Burke's aesthetics. It also shows that the "naturalism" of bourgeois ideology is contradicted by the strategic artificiality of Burke's politico-aesthetic. Insofar as the ideologue seeks to resolve the contingent aspects of language and history, Burke cannot be considered an ideological thinker. Rather, Burke's political philosophy consistently fails to provide the coalescence of subjective and universal which is required for ideology. Finally, the irreconcilable contingency of Burke's view of political experience shows that his conservatism is not, as his critics would have it, static and unchanging.