abstract: There has been a robust and ongoing investment in demystifying the discursive and material conditions of neoliberalism. Scholars in communication have done much work to explore the various rhetorical effects and processes of neoliberal discourses and practices. Many of these case studies have tethered their concerns of neoliberalism to the conceptualization of the public sphere. However, most of this research rests on the absence of those that try to “make do.” By privileging rhetoric after the fact, such studies tend to provide more agency to ideology than everyday bodies that engage in their own rhetorical judgments and discernments. In addition, scholarship across the board tends to treat neoliberalism as something dangerously and uniquely new. This framing effectively serves to ignore the longer history of liberalism and liberal thought that paved the path of neoliberalism the United States is now on. With these two broad concerns in mind, this study centers a case study of a charter school in South Phoenix to focus on the vernacular rhetorics of those on the ground. Guided by public sphere theory, critical race theory, and intersectionality, I take up rhetorical field methods to explore how those involved with this charter school navigate and make sense of school choice and charter schools in the age of neoliberalism. Within this context, field methods permit me to locate the various discourses, practices, and material constraints that shape running, being educated at, and selecting a charter school. These various rhetorical practices brought to the forefront an interest and concern with the school’s whole child approach as it is rooted within Stephen Covey’s (1989) seven habits. Additional qualitative data analysis brings about two new concepts of neoliberal scapegoating and dialectical vernacular complicity. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings as they speak to how rhetorical field methods, supported by intersectionality and critical race theory, invites critics to center more agency on people rather than ideas, and how that makes for a more complicated and nuanced neoliberal reality and modes of resistance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2020

Having been introduced in Sweden in the 1980’s, one would perhaps have thought postmodern philosophy to be a thing of the past. As it turns out, the debate on postmodernism is still very much alive. But the term ‘postmodernism’ in 2021 is complex and sometimes misunderstood. In public discourse, the term has moved beyond its status as a continental philosophy or as a denomination for certain historical conditions of the late twentieth century. Today, it appears, people use ‘postmodernism’ as an invective for relativism, post-truth and ‘empty words’. Two books, published in 2020, even warn the Swedish people for a postmodern invasion of both the academics and Swedish government. The humanities, apparently, are especially corrupted by postmodern thinking. Is this true? As a rhetorician, I ask myself to what extent postmodern theory has had an influence on Swedish rhetoric in the 40 years since the discipline was re-established within higher education.  This essay examines course syllabuses, teaching material, Swedish articles in the periodical Rhetorica Scandinavica, doctoral theses, and the complete works published by Sweden’s eight professors of rhetoric. Early on, I found that there was very little information available about the development of  Swedish rhetoric –even less about a postmodern rhetoric in a Swedish context. Thus, this essay is to be looked at as both a history of Swedish postmodern rhetoric – the first of its kind – and as an examination of the occurrence of postmodern theory within Swedish rhetoric. I find that postmodernism has not, as opposed to the critics’ claims, played a key role in the development of Swedish rhetoric. Its presence has, however, significantly increased within the field of rhetoric since 2010, and I discuss why that might be. Further, I discuss what can be said to define the Swedish postmodern rhetoric, and what the future might hold for this specific branch of rhetorical studies and research.