<p> On June 30, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States decided in favor of Hobby Lobby, Inc. in the landmark decision of <i>Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc.</i> This decision established a significant new legal principle, substantially changing the interpretation of the Affordable Care Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and for-profit business rights. This thesis uses hermeneutic rhetorical theory to study the majority and dissenting opinions of the <i>Hobby Lobby, Inc.</i> decision to explicate the inherent paternalistic function within the rhetorical arguments of protection, corporate personhood, choice, sincerity, and the burden versus entitlement binary. Beyond the <i>Hobby Lobby, Inc.</i> decision, I argue that paternalism lies at the heart of many of the differences in feminist hermeneutics on abortion. This thesis promotes a more tolerant and respectful examination of the abortion debate with the higher goal of reaching a greater understanding of our social condition.</p>

<p>This study questions the way sports fans create (a sense of) community through online conversations. Here, &lsquo;community&rsquo; and &lsquo;internet&rsquo; are seen as invitational terms that suggest an authentic social interaction. By examining the language used by fans to sustain a sense of solidarity in the virtual realm, this study questions the ways in which rhetoric frames the situation. Participation in the virtual space relies on practices of identification derived from physical engagements. By using a rhetorical approach, this study illuminates the way individual participants operationalize a rhetoric in virtual conversations that spiritualize the fan&rsquo;s experience at the base of a sporting hierarchy. </p><p> This study centralizes identification as key to participation and the formation of community identity. The same language practices that work to shape the group also reinforce a sports ideology that spiritualizes fan participation. What emerges as a dominant substance is loyalty as key to identification/participation in the virtual community. This value-based substance offers the fan the ability to re-purpose their role as a profit source in the capitalist sporting structure. Therefore, the individuals focus on loyalty is rhetorical due to the internet space as capitalized communication. This study speaks to the way communication fosters virtual organizations, and points to how our cultured understandings conceal the rhetoric in everyday interactions. </p>

<p> In this thesis, I examine how postmodern notions of space and place may shed light on legal controversies regarding cyberbullying behavior in lower courts. Using the theories of Michel de Certeau, I argue that rhetorically intervening in these controversies by way of thinking through space and place not as geographic locations, but rather as relational and communicative concepts, may clarify some of the issues school administrators and courts run into when trying to regulate cyberbullying speech. I propose a set of standards for regulating some forms of cyberbullying speech that should not encroach upon students&rsquo; First Amendment rights to political speech.</p>

<p> The perceptions of six community college faculty members about the qualities of college-level writing were explored in a series of guided interviews conducted at Prairie Community College (a pseudonym) located in the central time zone of the United States. The study examined the perceptions of the six faculty members with regard to important characteristics of college-level writing, acceptable multiple discourses within college-level writing, and perceptions of faculty members from different academic disciplines about college-level writing. Interview data were analyzed through the lens of transcendental phenomenology. </p><p> The results showed that the six community college faculty members differed greatly by academic discipline about what they perceived college-level writing to be. The English faculty members believed that college-level writing consists of grammatically correct sentences presented within essay structures. However, faculty members of biology, economics, and mathematics were much more open in their perceptions about what could be accepted as college-level writing. </p><p> The results of the study suggest a need for dialogue among faculty members of different disciplines within community colleges about the characteristics of college-level writing and what community college students need to learn to become successful college-level writers.</p>

This dissertation explores the ambiguities of professionalization for writing centers and presents an alternative way to approach what I believe is an inevitable process. Toward that end, my project is to examine how the discourse surrounding the professionalization of writing centers constructs scholars, tutors, teachers, and writing. In particular, the focus of my project is to compare how tutors' self-definitions of professionalism reflect/deflect how professionalism is defined in the scholarly literature and in arenas outside of academia. The conclusions I draw are based on my research of two local writing centers in two southwest universities as well as a survey of the intertwined histories of literature, composition studies, and writing centers, and my experience co-directing a writing center for two years. My final argument is that writing center workers ought to look outside of academia for organizational models more closely aligned to political activism such the civil rights movement and women's movement, and to capitalize on the interdisciplinary nature of writing center work to create a "participatory democracy," in which participants theorize from their experience and value the process over gaining expertise.

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

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This dissertation argues that using rhetorical approaches to outré literature gleaned from popular culture within the context of first-year composition helps students become critical readers, thinkers, and writers. I suggest that if instructors privilege texts their students are likely to be familiar with in English 101, then they can more readily introduce unfamiliar concepts like rhetorical analysis; by the time students arrive in English 102, they can apply the now familiar concept of rhetorical analysis to new texts such as academic discourse. Thus, in designing this curriculum I draw on the Harry Potter novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Star Wars graphic novels to present nine rhetorical strategies that can be used not only for literary texts such as these, but can also be transferred to a variety of novel situations students are likely to encounter in college and in the everyday world. In the end, the dissertation makes arguments not only for using literature to teach composition, but also for using rhetorical analysis as a means to teach reading, thinking, and writing, and also for keeping first-year composition as a required part of the curriculum.

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