English Masters Papers

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"Putting on My Feminist Pants": How Academic Feminists Use Clothing to Construct Professional Identity
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Gunter, Katie Marie
Feminism has traditionally been concerned with issues of women's bodies; however, an examination of women's bodies in clothing has been largely overlooked, especially in relation to feminists themselves. Constructing identity for professional feminists in the context of clothing calls into question the traditional feminist binary of privileging the mind over the body. While many feminist writers discuss a rift between second and third wave feminists concerning views on clothing, no one has produced data to show that these views are still held. This paper investigates how second and third wave professional feminists view clothing in relation to the mind/body binary using the classical rhetorical notions of ethos and terpsis. The data revealed that even among professional feminists, the mind/body binary still privileges those qualities associated with the mindand that dressing as a professional feminist means dressing for authority and the political expression of feminist values, specifically economy and comfort.
Enculturating Gender: Examining Bestselling Children's Picture Books
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Smith, Kara Michele
This research examines gender depictions in 20 current bestselling children's picture books. I argue that children's picture books, specifically those aimed at children 0-5 years of age, portray gender in a way that potentially limits girls in developing and achieving their goals because of the limited options presented to them based on gender and also constrains boys' emotional growth due to the rigid standards depicted for them. These depictions are especially critical during the Sensorimotor and Preoperational stages in children's development because they are developmentally primed for acquiring and being socialized to gender knowledge. Extending the work of Hamilton et al., this research reaffirms their findings, showing that nearly a decade later, in terms of gender depictions in children's picture books, little progress has been made. Females are still largely underrepresented in central roles and in illustrations, are passive, and are presented with limited options in terms of occupations, while males are portrayed as active and independent and have a variety of occupational choices available to them. Additionally, this study employs a contemporary visual rhetorical lens to further enrich our understanding of the gender depictions in children's picture books by analyzing illustrations in terms of McCloud's definitions of the relationships between text and images and Horn's notions of proximity, white space, placement, distance, and angle. This portion of the analysis reinforces the findings and allows for a more articulated discussion of gender depictions in children's picture books.
Lord of the Living Souls: Dominion and the Spiritual Lives of Animals in Milton's Paradise Lost
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Russow, Kurt William
This paper examines Milton's views of the spiritual status of animals as presented in Paradise lost. It discusses how Milton enters into discussion with the discourses of 111 theology, philosophy, and both antique and modern science to construct his own nuanced view on the dominion humankind was theologically mandated to have over animals. Milton promotes a complex animal ethic based simultaneously on both hierarchy and kinship. Ultimately this ethic is used not only to celebrate animals, but also to celebrate a stewardship-oriented notion of a divinely ordained hierarchy.
Jacques Lacan and Mary Shelley: Repressed Abandonment in Frankenstein
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Garey 111, Kyle Rasmussen
Mary Shelley's early life was fraught with developmental problems. Like Victor Frankenstein's Creation, she lacked a genuine chance to experience what Jacques Lacan calls the Real with her mother. While some readings of Frankenstein point to Mary's early development as being successful and properly supported by William Godwin's love, thus making her upbringing parallel to Victor's, Mary nonetheless experienced many of the same deprivations the Creation in Frankenstein did. In this paper, the author maintains that, based on a Lacanian analysis of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's emotional detachment from his Creation and others reflects Mary Shelley's psychological sense that she had been abandoned and betrayed by the principal people in her life, including William Godwin, Mary Jane Godwin, Percy Shelley, and her dead mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. The feeling of being an outcast that the Creation expresses so eloquently in his Lacanian Symbolic phase coincides, in Mary's life, with the repressed abandonment issues that were coming to the forefront of her consciousness at the time she wrote her famous novel. Mary's chain of signifiers, indicating her repressed feelings, came out during her "session on the couch" in Lake Geneva and became metaphorically embodied in her seminal novel. In a Lacanian sense, the Creation was Mary's alter ego. Mary used the written word to express her feelings and was destined for such a creative expression of her inner life by being born into a literary family. Mary Shelley used Frankenstein as a vehicle to deal with the pain and the injustices she experienced during the first two decades of her life.
The Power to (Re )Produce: Biological Determinism in McTeague.
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Tobias, Stacey Jo
In McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, Frank Norris explores life among the working class of Polk Street. Through his unflattering portrayal of all the immigrant characters in the novel, Norris demonstrates his well-documented beliefs in inherited degeneracy. The relationship between Zerkow, a Polish Jew, and Maria Macapa, a Mexican maid, especially highlights these beliefs. 111 Though many scholars have approached Zerkow and Maria as individual characters, it is the complex dynamic of their relationship which this paper explores. Through the utilization of Marxist notions of commodity and feminist notions of the body and reproduction, Maria's sacrifices as an immigrant woman hoping to achieve the social normalcy of marriage and family become clear. Maria's story (with connections to her racial heritage) and body become commodities, and ultimately her power to (re )produce is compromised. Zerkow's greed, apparent not only in his stereotypical Jewish desire for gold, but also in his desire to possess Maria's story and body, leads to the devaluing of Maria and to her murder. Maria and Zerkow are two "racially inferior" characters united through a marriage based not on love, but opportunity and convenience. Their story demonstrates not only late nineteenth century ideas about race and immigration, but also Norris's personal contempt for the immigrant population.
The Feminist Cure: Feminist Identity As a Shield from Hyper-Sexualized l'vledia Induced Self-Objectification in College Women
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Carlson, Natalie Smith
This paper explores the impact of hyper-sexualized media on college women in terms of inducing self-objectification and/or inhibiting feminist identity. The survey and resulting analysis showed participants' feminist orientation ostensibly affected their inclination to self-objectify after watching and responding to a slideshow of common images of women in our culture. By comparing the reactions of women \Vith high feminist orientation and low feminist orientation, suggestions were clear about connections between an identification with feminism and a propensity to value the self and other women for characteristics beyond those of appearance and sexuality.
Time to Play the Religion Card: Messiah Complexes in Battlestar Galactica
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Wolf, Carissa Noel
In 2003, Battlestar Galactica (BSG) was re-invented from its 1978 roots and updated to a post-apocalyptic narrative that reflects numerous issues in current American culture, including the influence of religious rhetoric in post-9/11 politics. As theorized by psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the fictions of a culture reveal the subconscious values and beliefs of that culture, 1 and BSG has proven fertile ground for such investigations. Four major compilations of critical essays on BSG have been published to date, with some articles analyzing the post-9/11 politics and others on the use of religion in the narrative, but few examine these elements in conjunction with each other or how the characters use them. This combination of political and religious rhetoric is especially important in how BSG cultivates multiple messianic characters to drive its narrative and resolve complex issues for its characters - yet the published scholarship remains silent on this. For a single narrative to contain multiple messianic characters is a rare phenomenon, for as mythologist Joseph Campbell observes, such salvation figures operate on global and cosmic scales. 2 Yet BSG transforms the characters of Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar into a space-age Moses and Christ, respectively, and more importantly it makes their tag-team messiahships a necessity for the narrative. In creating this messianic multiplicity, BSG suggests that a single individual cannot address all of the needs of a desperate people - a messiah can function either in the political realm ( serving as an agent of physical salvation) or on a spiritual level (delivering emotional redemption), but not both. Much of this messianic dualism emerges in the characters' rhetorical strategies - relying on classical Aristotelian forms vs. Judeo-Christian sermonic oratory, how they address underlying needs to appeal to the people, and in the ultimate 'scope' of their messianic influence on their societal and cultural history. Their messianic transformations and the mythic nature of the BSG narrative itself take a modem twist on Jungian archetypes and Campbellian universals, and thus guided by the same theorists that influenced their construction, I analyze the messiahships of Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar through their use of political and religious rhetoric, how that rhetoric transforms them and their followers, and what this unique storytelling reveals about post-9/11 American perspectives.
Pregnancy, Illness, and Violence : The Power Discourses of Motherhood in Mary Morrissy's Mother of Pearl
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Oster, Rebecca Renae
This paper aims to explore the connection between the power structures of religion and medicine within Mary Morrissy's Mother of Pearl. Morrissy's text explores the ways in which women are oppressed by the Irish construct of perfect motherhood, which stems from the internalized social control exemplified in the religious and cultural expectations of women. Morrissy's text points out that a woman's national and individual identity is directly defined by her role as a mother and a religious figure. Morrissy's text critiques this construct and shows it to be unattainable as the power structures create a new form of oppression that continues to mandate the mother construct through bodily control. The connection between these power structures is exemplified through the geographical and political borders of Ireland as well as the physical borders of women's bodies. The medical power structure physically invades women's bodies and leaves them scarred, marked, and dependent on the construct for any identity. Morrissy's text critiques this impossible standard and a culture's tendency to perpetuate the myth of perfect motherhood within the ideological community.
The Human Animal : Posthumanism in John Steinbeck's Cannery Row
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Rohwedder, CeCe
In this paper, I examine John Steinbeck's Cannery Row on the basis of the posthuman vision that courses through it, as it does through many of Steinbeck's works. I propose that Steinbeck presents human and animal worlds that intermingle, mimic, and sustain one another; what Steinbeck described as non-teleological may justifiably be considered posthuman. In Cannery Row, people of various social positionings and mental capacities are presented plainly and matter-of-factly, without even a hint at causation or judgment of their character, abilities, behaviors, morals, or actions. The novel is grounded in a vision of close inter-species connections in which humans are not any better than any other animate species, and animals are not inferior to humans; we are alike more than we are not. Three ideas, developed in three separate chapters of this paper, are central to demonstrating the posthumanism of Cannery Row with its clear affinities to the posthumanism delineated by Cary Wolfe in What ls Post humanism? These include interspecies connectedness, the shared bond of suffering, and pet-"owner" relationships. Cannery Row, as well as The Logfrom the Sea of Cortez, also by Steinbeck, exemplifies the interconnectedness, similarities, and interdependencies between species, including humans who sense animals' unspoken pain and act to alleviate it, animals and humans who experience alienation and ostracism and suffer from it, and a dog who lives with as much independence and autonomy as her human housemates, to reveal a world that is not anthropocentric but rather posthuman. Human beings in the novel are placed side by side with non-human characters who are similarly presented, and there is a sense of equality and inclusiveness between biological species observed being themselves. The bond of suffering is shared by humans and nonhumans, who acknowledge and respond to suffering in other species. Relationships between humans and pets showcase distinctions between Cannery Row 's humanist and posthuman characters. The clear conclusion is that Cannery Row embraces posthumanism.
"Building a Class Library": Emphasizing Summary in Teaching Source Use
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Haich, Niles Andrew
The study presented here is a qualitative study evaluating four objectives for teaching source use, ones I emphasized in my Spring 2011 classes with an assignment called the "Building a Class Library Assignment." I relied on two methods for evaluation: (1) process reflection, with audio recordings of one-on-one sessions serving as my data set; and (2) product analysis, with student-written profiles serving as my data set. In analyzing the profiles, as well as the interviews, it became obvious that my students fell short in the areas I wanted them to demonstrate an understanding in. However, it also became obvious that, because of the Class Library, the message that source integration means writing summary was one all of my students retained. Also successful was the structure of the Class Library, one that provided students with a recurring context in which to practice summary, and provided me with an additional setting in which to work with students on their writing. It is for these reasons that I argue that the Class Library, and the four objectives that are emphasized in the assignment, provide one answer to the larger, pedagogical question of how to improve instruction of source use. 111
Analysis of a Facebook Freakout: Rhetoric of Agency in the Places Privacy Debate
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Bakke, Abigail Rose
New technologies often generate fear regarding privacy threats, and social networking sites like Face book have lately experienced the brunt of the criticism. Face book users, even as they post greater amounts of information online, express concern over privacy violations. This paradox suggests that the issue is more complex than the private/public dichotomy and that the rhetoric used during these protests could yield insights regarding the competing worldviews expressed in a privacy debate. My paper examines discourse by the ACLU and Face book at the time the controversial Facebook Places application came out. I use cluster criticism to show how the two rhetors position themselves, each other, Face book users, and users' friends in terms of the degree of control each ;:igent is portrayed as having. My findings suggest that appealing to users' agency will be a key persuasive strategy as concerns over social networking privacy violations increase, and I comment on how sentence structure in corporate discourse can be used to enhance or detract from users' sense of agency when using social networking sites.
Collaborative Argumentation: Toward a More Civil Rhetoric
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Rood, Craig James
I first describe competitive and cooperative approaches to argumentation, and I claim that cooperative argumentation aligns with the rhetorical tradition yet needs to be developed further. I focus on civil rhetoric as one form of cooperative argumentation. Building off the abstract description of civility offered by Theresa Enos and Kathleen Blake Yancey, I move to the practical level. Blending a quantitative and qualitative approach, I analyze students' writing from an anthology assignment (which pairs collaboration and argumentation) to determine: What kind of civility moves does the anthology assignment foster? In my analysis, I identify six civility moves: (1) common ground, (2) counter-arguments, (3) logic, (4) nuance, (5) openness, and (6) tone. I then claim that rhetoric which includes the six civility moves-along with attention to ethos and the rhetorical situation's structure-can lead to more productive arguments and argumentation in both our classrooms and wider culture.
Time to Play the Religion Card: Messiah Complexes in Battlestar Galactica
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Wolf, Carissa Noel
In 2003, Battlestar Galactica (BSG) was re-invented from its 1978 roots to a post-apocalyptic narrative steeped in religious rhetoric and Machiavellian politics. This combination of political and religious rhetoric is especially evident in how BSG cultivates multiple messianic characters – namely by transforming President Laura Roslin and scientist Gaius Baltar into a space-age Moses and Christ, respectively. In creating this messianic multiplicity, BSG suggests that a single individual cannot address all of the needs of a desperate people – a messiah can function either in the political realm (serving as an agent of physical salvation) or on a spiritual level (delivering emotional redemption), but not both. Much of this messianic dualism emerges in the characters’ rhetorical strategies – relying on classical Aristotelian forms vs. Judeo-Christian sermonic oratory, how they address underlying needs to appeal to the people, and in the ultimate ‘scope’ of their messianic influence on their societal and cultural history.
Rematerializing the Contact Zone : Discovery and Exploration in the First Year Writing Classroom
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Kornkven, Erik Kermeth
This study investigates Mary Louise Pratt's "contact zone" theory and argues that the contact zone has undergone a dematerializing process from a place with clear geographical and material connections to an imagined geography. Using the material rhetoric scholarship of Nedra Reynolds and Richard Mar back, the paper shows the weakening effect a dematerialized metaphor has on classroom pedagogy and presents a writing assignment that seeks to rematerialize the contact zone for the first year writing classroom. The paper explores other uses of contact zone pedagogy to show that there is a pattern of dematerialization prevalent in contact zone pedagogy throughout its existence. Using Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad of lived, conceived, and perceived aspects of space, an assignment is presented that attempts to rematerialize the contact zone in the classroom, effectively changing it from a place of exploration to a place of discovery. Sixty-six student papers were gathered along with reflections throughout their writing process. Students were asked to identify a community they were a part of and describe it using Lefebvre's spatial triad before identifying contact zones in their own lives. The assignment provides students with a way to approach important cultural and societal issues from a place of authority resulting in a fully embodied exploration of their own contact zones.
Providing for Duncan : Representing Hospitality and National Identity in Shakespeare's Macbeth
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Rude, Sarah
Felicity Heal has suggested that the early modem English perceived hospitality as a ritual in decline. Interestingly, the circulation of the idea of decaying hospitality coincided with an attempt to define what exactly it meant to be "English," particularly in comparison to what it meant to be "Scottish" with the ascension of a Scottish king on the English throne. This discursive intersection of declining hospitality and national identity is distinctly visible in Shakespeare's Macbeth. In this master's paper, I will argue that Macbeth's Scottish entanglement in the English discourse of declining hospitality casts the play's eponymous hero as doubly deviant: As a play portraying the repercussions of a breach in hospitality, Macbeth echoes and develops the rules and roles of hosts and guests found in early modern English travel literature, but as a depiction of a specifically Scottish host who stands in contrast to the English Edward and, by association, James I, Macbeth also participates in the discourse surrounding national identity. Therefore, when Macbeth and his wife murder their guests or welcome other murderers into their home, they affirm England's negative perception of Scotland and position themselves in direct contrast to English hosts of great renown. I will argue here that the play knowingly attacks an ideal that the English hold close to their hearts, perhaps precisely because they see it slipping away.
Learning for Legislation and a Lifetime: Using UBD, Workshop Model, and Technology to Create 21st Century Learners
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Austreim, Codi Lyn
This paper discusses the issues surrounding No Child Left Behind legislation, gives a review of research surrounding best practices, details what educators can do to satisfy the requirements of the law while still engaging their students in the course content and teaching them critical, 21st century skills. Further, using Understanding by Design, the Workshop Model, and technology, this project provides a sample 9-week unit that meets multiple standards and benchmarks and emphasizes 21st century skills. With a combination of researched pedagogies, this paper argues that educators can prepare their students for state assessments and life beyond their formal education.
Heteronormative Recovery in the Bell Jar
(North Dakota State University, 2012) Junglas, Gretchen Therese
In Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood struggles to form a true identity. She emulates many women as a way to see how various identities work for her. One of these identities is that of a lesbian. During the novel’s 1953 setting, lesbianism was not a socially acceptable lifestyle. Esther struggles with own internalized homophobia as well as the control of her doctors. She undergoes treatment during her hospitalization that is suggestive of sexual conversion therapy at the time, including the use of electricity as a tool of discipline. Doctors lead her toward an identity that is not necessarily true or healthy. The novel suggests that recovery is actually heteronormative conformity.
Superheroes and Media: Commentaries about the American Media in Mark Millar and Brian Hitch's The Ultimates
(North Dakota State University, 2012) Muzzy, Kelli Marie
Millar and Hitch’s The Ultimates, a reboot of the Marvel Avengers published shortly after the events of 9/11, provides a critique of the role of the American media in American society and politics. By tracing instances where reader participation is required to complete meaning in the text, we can examine how the creators construct the text to engage the reader through: audience participation, the construction and use of panels, and by discussing how the media shapes the reactions of American viewers. The reader learns to examine the text for instances where media or media events occur and to critically examine these events. Millar and Hitch manipulate the function and shape of the panel in order to demonstrate the media’s ability to edit and frame the content of events, leading readers.
Where's the Revolution?: From "Code Year" to the Continuum of Proceduracy
(North Dakota State University, 2012) Lindgren, Christopher Aaron
As the calendar turned over to 2012, an online learning initiative, Codecademy, declared it “Code Year”—the year “for everyone” to learn code. Within six months, this call has received much attention from the public and scholars in the university. Yet, this history and theory paper more deeply investigates this call for a new mass literacy, which was actually proposed back in the 1960s as procedural literacy, i.e., proceduracy. Accordingly, a history is told about how Computer Science ignored Alan Perlis’ call for procedural literacy and Rhetoric and Composition has just recently begun to address Marshall McLuhan’s media turn. From there, this paper connects new scholarship and applications surrounding the unexamined persuasive and expressive faculties of processes to literacy scholar Annette Vee’s levels of proceduracy. Finally, conclusions and implications of Rhetoric and Composition’s involvement in the deeper engagement with the writing of code are discussed.
"Who Are You and I...?": The Rhetoric of Identity in the Aloha Eagles Letters
(North Dakota State University, 2012) Hayes, Rebecca Joy
In 1969, four years before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, Aloha Eagles, a Republican legislator in the North Dakota House of Representatives, proposed a House Bill 319 to legalize abortion in North Dakota. Throughout the legislative session, Eagles corresponded with many North Dakotans regarding the bill. This study asks how Eagles and her correspondents construct identities, such as mother, citizen, or medical professional, to support or oppose abortion. Using rhetorical and archival research methods to examine rhetorics of identity in 78 pairs of letters between Eagles and her correspondents, the study reveals that writers construct marital, professional, parental, religious, and civic identities literally, implicitly, and metaphorically as a form of rhetorical action. By articulating identities in these ways, writers contest the meanings of identity categories and attempt to shape who is sanctioned to speak on the issue of abortion.

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