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.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2006. / Title from dissertation PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 30, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-08, Section: A, page: 2967. Adviser: Robert L. Ivie.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2006. / Adviser: Robert L. Ivie.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 14, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-09, Section: A, page: 3533. Adviser: Carolyn Calloway-Thomas.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 2926. Adviser: Stephen Hartnett. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 266-284) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 24, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4320. Adviser: Robert E. Terrill.