As an abstraction that identifies the inner thinking self, the mind is a powerful resource for rhetorical invention, enabling both the generation of discourse and epistemic sense-making. This dissertation provides insight into the discursive life of the mind, examining how different instantiations of the concept were put to rhetorical use in three specific historical cases. In each case study, I examine a conception of the mind that originated in the realm of institutional science and that made its way into public culture, often circuitously, and frequently transformed in the process. The first case study analyzes a nineteenth-century phrenology handbook, which reveals how the phrenological mind enabled pre-existing cultural beliefs to be resourced, or respoken as if the objective results of science. The second case study examines Benjamin Spocks use of Freudian ideas to generate child-rearing advice in his classic Baby and Child Care manual. My analysis of Spocks Freudianism leads me to propose that beliefs about the mind constitute a uniquely generative class of doxa that I label psychodoxa. The final case study focuses on the contemporary cerebral self, which asserts the isomorphism of mind, brain, and self. This conception of mind generated considerable interest in Terri Schiavos brain in the end-of-life case that dominated news media in the early 2000s, and I suggest that much of the discourse concerning Schiavos brain relied on recalcitrance to channel invention. The dissertation concludes by considering the minds utility as an inventional resource for rhetoric itself.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12082010-235519 |
| Date | 30 January 2011 |
| Creators | Gibbons, Michelle Geraldine |
| Contributors | Dr. John Lyne, Dr. Lester Olson, Dr. Ronald Zboray, Dr. James E. McGuire |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12082010-235519/ |
| Rights | restricted, 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 University of Pittsburgh 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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