There is a renewed exigence for scholars of rhetoric to examine how groups identify themselves by what they are not. I contend this exigence is present in deconversion narratives, narratives that articulate a loss of belief. I analyze two disparate conversion narratives in order to build upon Maurice Charland's theory of Constitutive Rhetoric. Books by Dan Barker, an ordained Christian Pastor, and William Lobdell, a journalist covering the religion beat serve as my texts. Barker's narrative serves as an example of a failed constitutive rhetoric, and I argue Barker's failures reemphasize the salience of Kenneth Burke's theory of identification to constitutive rhetoric. Barker's narrative serves as an example of a successful constitutive rhetoric, despite lacking Charland's ideological effects of constitutive rhetoric. I perform this analysis in order to give attention to a particular kind of identity constitution, one that is articulated primarily as a movement away from an ideology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-12092011-132653 |
| Date | 09 December 2011 |
| Creators | Tousley, Robert James |
| Contributors | Ann George |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-12092011-132653/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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