Rhetorics of identification traditionally address two questions: how does rhetoric work, who or what is involved in rhetorical relations, and how do these relations unfold and proceed, and how can and should we conduct ourselves in light of this state of things, what modes of engagement and response do we have available? Rhetoricians have drawn substantially on Kenneth Burke’s work on symbolic action in answering these questions, but this emphasis on the symbolic does not exhaust the range and nature of rhetorical relations, and other modes of relationality thus warrant our attention. My work aims to consider how our understanding of identification shifts when we move beyond the symbolic frame, when we attend to rhetorical relations without grounding our inquiry in considerations of representation, interpretation, understanding, dialectics, and epistemology. Drawing on conversations in nonrational rhetorics, object-oriented ontology, postmodernism and postmodern literature, digital rhetorics, writing studies, and video game studies, I attend to the material, affective, and singular nature of rhetorical relations. I also consider the modes of engagement this understanding of identification makes available with reference to writing pedagogy and the work of authors Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace. / text

This report examines maximalist voice in the nonfiction work of James Agee, Lester Bangs, and David Foster Wallace. The term maximalist voice is meant to capture a set of authorial strategies for depicting a vast, complex American reality with an equally complex literary style, one that is simultaneously didactic, chaotic, and intimate. In particular, this report examines Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Bangs’s Psychotic Reactions and Carburator Dung, and Wallace’s Consider the Lobster. In using “voice” as an analytic lens, this report highlight those qualities of the three author’s nonfiction writing that draw upon the particular conventions of oral communication. It concludes by arguing for increased use of voice as a way to analyze literary writing. / text

In the Swedish school one of the tasks is to work against gender stereotypes and towardsequality between the sexes. The purpose with this essay is to present ways of looking atliterature that teachers can either implement in their classroom or use to better preparethemselves, ways for both teachers and their pupils to gain a critical view towards literaturethat can strengthen the work towards such equality. The tools used in the essays are 1) readingprevious scholars’ analysis of the text, 2) the Bechdel-Wallace-Test, and 3) the Gender Stairs.My example text will be Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight from 2007. The results shows that thebook clearly presents stereotypes of males and females, since the male characters in the bookare strong, protective, and active, while the female characters are beautiful, dependent, andpassive. The novel also defends, preserves, and amplifies patriarchal structures. This analysisplaces Twilight as a minus three in Edwertz and Lundström’s Gender Stairs. The novel is thusa good book for teachers to use if they want their students to see a classical example of howgender myths are presented in literature. Showing a classical example of stereotypes inliterature may in turn help the students detect stereotypes, which is one step towards equalitybetween men and women, which is one of the tasks of the Swedish schools.

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) is probably the greatest and most prolific exponent of purist estheticism in all of American letters. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, his first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923) won him the respect and admiration of his fellow writers, but brought him little popular acclaim and less remuneration. His career as a poet spanned four decades, the 1923 volume being followed by Ideas 2( Order (1935); The Man with the Blue Guitar (1937); Parts of â World (1942); Transport to Symmer (1947); The Auroras gt Autumn (1950); The Necessary Angel (a collection of essa7s, 1951); The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954); and Opus Posthumous (a miscellany of poems, plays, and prose works, edited by Samuel French Morse, 1957). Unlike most of his contemporaries, Stevens chose to divide his time between the world of poetry and that of business, keeping in the process very much to himself, and refusing to mix with literary or academie society. From 1916 to his death in 1955, he was associated with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, of which he became vice-president in 1934. [...]

This thesis is divided into four chapters, the first of which is theoretical and synoptic. The method of chapter 1 is threefold. Firstly, an examination of the idea of the late career, including previous research on the subject, common perceptions and archetypes, and a consideration of the nature of artistic self-consciousness as it influences the late career. Secondly, a discussion of old age in literature, including the context of gerontology, our typically equivocal picture of old age as both decaying and spiritualized, and a consideration of the mode of creativity of the aged. Thirdly, an examination of literary "endings": the point at which the poet is faced with formal conclusions and "last things." A number of topics associated with or generated by the late career are considered, particularly the summational impulse, confrontation with death, and engagement with posterity: three perspectives supplied by the moment of ending. In the three chapters which follow, I examine the structure of the late careers of Hardy, Yeats and Stevens, in particular the points of crisis and self-renewal, and including in each case works which precede the final phase. The evolving attitude of each poet to old age is examined, and a number of topics which seem intrinsic to the late career: monumental intentions and their decay, the fate of the poet's work in posterity, the dividing of the mortal body from the poetic corpus, the old man's introjected sexuality, and the heightened dualism of old age. Finally, in each case the "final gestures" of the poet are considered: his attempts to confront the demands of the literary "ending. "

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.78-85).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2007. / "Graduate Program in Literatures in English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 210-221).

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1996. / Bibliography: leaves 126-130. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1966. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Phil.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.