This project speaks to those with broad research interests in rhetorical studies, the ethnography of working class students and scholars, and the role of socioeconomic class in education. In this dissertation, I take as the object of my study two groups of primary sources---the autobiographical rhetorical pieces that appear in a set of five main books of essays by and about working class people and postings to a national working class academic listserv. My purpose in examining these texts is to compare definitions and experiences of "working class scholars" as conveyed by the writers and to explicate and analyze these definitions and rhetorical strategies. This study argues for the existence of a shared discourse among working class intellectuals that developed from the autobiographical essays the scholars created for a core set of published texts, the working class listserv, and additional related texts. These shared narratives give insight into working class scholars' beliefs, actions, education and worldviews as the writers attempt to understand the ways class has acted on their lives and their scholarship. On a larger scale, this study investigates how people tell stories about themselves and how these stories evolve over time to become stronger and more similar to each other, the longer the discourse exists. In their discourse, the working class academics give voice to members of an emerging and identifiable common discourse. Texts in this discourse include commonalties of form and thematic content that circulate freely among members even though the discourse community is widely dispersed geographically. The working class writers use a common language to characterize their experiences and to speak meaningfully to each other about them. Exploring the classed discourse and difficulties expressed in these texts sheds light on American class structures, and suggests ways in which universities might better serve and retain working class people.

In this thesis entitled Traduction et creation chez l'ecrivain-traducteur, we set out to demonstrate that faithfulness is as much a fundamental experience to the writer-translator in his creative writing task as it is in his translation task. / We shall see that the everlasting translation debate opposing faithfulness to betrayal can only find its resolution through a fresh interrogation of the notion of meaning, which is too often viewed as determined and translatable, thereby constraining the literary work. / Thus, we found it necessary to return to the experience of reading as a pursuit of a meaning that is multiple and in movement. To better understand what this reading experience means, we turned to that special reader the writer-translator is, for he is involved both in the reading and in the writing of the literary work. / In the intimate movement which leads from reading to writing, the writer-translator need not be faithful to the source language or to the target language, but faithful to what is revealed between the two, to what eludes them both. In this manner, translation becomes the pursuit of a third language, which would be as close as possible to the literary absolute of which all works, whether written by the writer-translator or by the author he translates, are translations.

<p>The fundamental purpose of <i>Theoretical Communities of Praxis: The University Writing Center as Cultural Contact Zone</i> is to investigate the situatedness of Writing Center Studies, defining it as an autonomous (sub)discipline and interdisciplinary contact zone within the larger discipline of Rhetoric and Composition. In order to meet this objective, a &ldquo;Communities of Praxis&rdquo; methodological and theoretical framework, based on scholarship of Critical Discourse Analysis, ecocomposition, and Contextualist Research Paradigm, is applied in the analysis of a variety of WCS discourses. </p><p> In doing so, WCS is repositioned as a series of interrelated, triangulated contact zones that are based on collaborative interactions and illustrated through the development of heuristic maps that challenges the traditional discursive practices of local writing centers and the WCS (sub)discipline alike. By emphasizing a (sub)disciplinary identification based on embracing WCS&rsquo;s place as an interdisciplinary contact zone, this dissertation demonstrates ways for all stakeholders to employ a Communities of Praxis framework in order to more effectively and more equitably consider the theoretical places and physical spaces of Writing Center Studies. </p>

<p> This study is a rhetorical analysis of 911 active shooter calls. Working from frame theory it examines the types of communication that occur during crisis situations. This study reviews the actual audio tapes of the Columbine Colorado School shooting, the Trolley Square Salt Lake City UT shooting and the Arizona shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Gifford. This study provides a method for investigating the communication between caller to 911 and the telecommunicators that answer 911calls. It provides a baseline of the communication activities that are occurring and this method of communication is rapidly changing with pending text-mediated communication scheduled to take effect in 911 centers in 2014.</p>

<p> Nativist language, expressed as opposition to foreigners, has been a part of American history since the country's founding. At various times, often during periods of recession and economic pressure, nativist movements have arisen with remarkable fervor, at times affecting the course of the nation's history. Most recently, the twenty years from 1990-2010 saw a significant increase both in the number and power of anti-immigration organizations. During this period, the contemporary minutemen, organizations of nativists focused on border security, came to prominence. Anti-immigrant pressure groups, whose purpose was to focus on specific aspects of immigration, became powerful. Nativist politicians found that rhetoric could successfully elevated their cause to prominence on the national stage. </p><p> This study uses principles of generic criticism to analyze the rhetoric of two contemporary Minutemen organizations and their founders, as well as three prominent nativist leaders. It seeks to determine whether there are common characteristics in the chosen examples of nativist rhetoric. Under such circumstances, the rhetoric would be classified as belonging to a particular genre, or type. The analysis reports that there are five common characteristics shared by the five rhetors: Appeals to rationality and positioning within the mainstream; predictions of threats to economic security and political stability; paranoid language; patriotic and constitutional imagery and alignment with law enforcement; and appeals for sympathy for victims. It continues by comparing the five commonalities with common rhetorical forms and concludes that all five align with the rhetorical type known as the jeremiad. Named for the biblical prophet Jeremiah, this type of rhetoric is marked by a call for a return to traditional values, predictions of disasters to come if the audience does not heed the warnings, and reassurance that the audience and the nation will be rewarded for their righteous behavior. The study also finds that contemporary nativist rhetoric can be classified as exhibiting the paranoid style of rhetoric. The study concludes with an enumeration of issues relating to rhetorical studies of nativism that arose during the research. These issues would be useful avenues of inquiry for other researchers intrigued by the subject.</p>

The method proposed by David Bleich in Readings and Feelings has been studied in a small group to determine if emotional involvement with literary works may be increased and, if so, what effect such increase would have on traditional literary competence. Results show that Bleich's method does increase emotional involvement with concurrent improvement in literary skills, particularly in the selection of more significant themes for student writing. Discussion of the method's application in regular classrooms is included.

A study of rhetorical practice in the design and interpretation of games, this dissertation draws on culture theory and ethnographic interviews to comprehend invention as a social act. Although only role-playing games written in English are considered, the approach taken to understand the structures of attention emergent in gaming is generalizable as a means of investigating the informal social and rhetorical aspects of other kinds of games. The textual and visual rhetorics of numerous games are examined as self-situating lessons for acquiring and focusing interest. The intrinsic gap between reading and following a rule is explored as a phenomenon mediated by rhetoric. Experienced players' reflections on styles and motives are translated into ratios in a grammar of rhetorical invention. Finally, the game designers are interviewed for their professional life histories relative to the development of particular games, and the matters they emphasize are read as configurations of cultural knowledge animated by personal rhetorical resources and heuristics.

<p> There is little doubt that emerging technologies are changing the way we act, interact, create, and consume. Yet despite increased access to these technologies, consumers of technology too seldom interrogate the politics, subjectivities, and limitations of these technologies and their interfaces. Instead, many consumers approach emerging technologies as objective tools to be consumed, and engage in creative processes uncritically. This disquisition, following the work of Hawisher, Selfe, and Selfe, seeks ways to approach the problem of a "rhetoric of technology" that uncritically praises new technologies by drawing on avant-garde art traditions and object-oriented ontology. I argue that, by following the philosophies and practices of glitch, dirty new media, zaum, dada, circuit-bending, and others, we might approach writing technologies with the intention of critically misusing, manipulating, and revealing to ourselves and audiences the materiality of the media and technologies in use.</p><p> In combination with these avant-garde practices and philosophies, I draw from object-oriented ontology to argue that we, as new media composers, never simply write <i>on</i> or <i>through</i> our technologies, but that we write in collaboration <i>with</i> them, for they are active and agential coauthors even (and especially) despite their status as nonhuman. I argue for an model that not only levels the ontological playing field between humans and nonhumans, but also one that embraces irregularities and "glitches" as essential features of systems and the actors within those systems. Finally, I provide examples of how to perform these models and philosophies, which I call <i>object-oriented art.</i></p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: 2438. Adviser: Peter Mortensen. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 230-242) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2005. / (UnM)AAI3200126. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-12, Section: A, page: 4396. Supervisor: Eric Rothstein.