English Doctoral Work

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Browsing English Doctoral Work by browse.metadata.program "Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture"

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    Advancing Gender Equity in STEM: Antenarratives and Feminist Leadership Practices in Policy Work
    (North Dakota State University, 2020) Petts, Ashleigh Ryann
    While the field technical and professional communication (TPC) has long been concerned with workplace writing and policy writing, few studies have addressed the process of policy writing within an academic context. Using antenarrative and apparent feminism methodologies, this dissertation explores the policy writing process and feminist leadership practices of the DESIGN Committee, a group of women academics who worked to propose new policy to address gender inequity in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields for faculty working in their statewide educational system (SES). Employing methods of observation, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and artifact collection over a period of three years, the researcher sought to answer two research questions: What does the process of policy writing look like for the DESIGN Committee? In what ways do feminist leadership practices, as performed by the committee leader and other committee members, influence the work of the DESIGN Committee? Through the creation of an antenarrative of the DESIGN Committee’s policy work, three important threads stand out: proximity, transparency, and accountability. These threads provide an alternative to the dominant narrative of the committee’s work. In addition, the committee leader’s use of feminist leadership practices, such as creating community, encouraging self-empowerment, and fostering collaboration, impacted the efficiency of the policy writing process. These results point to important factors for future policy writers to consider when composing policy to address diversity, equity, and inclusion or when employing feminist leadership practices.
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    A Rhetorical Approach to Human Remains Display in Museum Collections: An Ecotriangle of Publics, Objects, and Place
    (North Dakota State University, 2021) Watts, Amanda Christian
    This research approaches archaeological human remains in museum collections from a rhetorical perspective. Instead of joining the body of scholarship in museum studies that focuses on the process of curatorial interpretation, this project applies public memory studies to explore what happens to curatorial interpretation when it goes out into the world and is taken up in public circulated discourse. With a focus on publics, the moment of knowledge construction when visitors approach a display of human remains in a museum is captured and analyzed through the lenses of new materialism, rhetoric in situ, and public memory studies. Each lens represents the chosen approach to each of the three elements that converge at the moment of knowledge construction – publics, objects, and place – which are grouped together as a triangle of interrelated dynamics all working in a situationally-contingent rhetorical ecology of other factors and influences. Thus, the dynamic inseparable trio of publics, objects, and place are coined the “ecotriangle.” For museum studies, rhetoric’s foundational work can provide critical perspective into the nature of communication and meaning-making that happens when publics meet human remains in a museum space. In order to explore the ecotriangular relationship of publics, objects, and place with an interdisciplinary approach, this project begins by interrogating the implicit assumptions within the defitions of terms like “public” and “object” then develops collaborative definitions from the scholarship in rhetoric, archaeology, and museum studies. The particular case of human remains challenges most scholarships’ definitions of object. Yet as this research reveals, human remains as case study help develop and refine the approach to objects, materiality, interpretation, and museum display when challenged to inclusively frame such a case instead of treat human remains as an exception or outlier to scholarship on objects. Exploring the ecotriangle as a heuristic model for conceptualization of interrelational dynamics in knowledge construction extends current scholarship in rhetoric, especially rhetoric in situ and rhetorical ecology, and also reinforces existing interdisciplinary bridges between the fields of rhetoric, archaeology, and museum studies.
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    Toward a More Visually Literate Writing Classroom: An Analysis of Visual Communication Pedagogy and Practices
    (North Dakota State University, 2019) Zufelt, Darren Allan
    “Toward a More Visually Literate Writing Classroom: An Analysis of Visual Communication Pedagogy and Practices” examines the teaching of visual communication in undergraduate professional and technical communication courses. Through an analysis of scholarship, textbooks, I argue that a situated visual communication pedagogy that integrates both analysis and reflection throughout the visual production and design process can better allow students to understand the ways in which the visual participates within larger social and cultural contexts. This understanding helps students develop abilities to potentially transform visual discourses emphasizing that all visual documents and texts, including the ones they produce, participate in shaping the ways in which meaning is made. By integrating visual communication and design into civic engagement pedagogies in the professional and technical communication classroom, instructors and students can begin to interrogate the view that professional and technical communication is a neutral, objective practice concerned only with prescriptive adherence to forms, conventions, workplace efficiency, and corporate success. Thus, in addition to helping students develop as communicators and thinkers, integrating visual communication into service-learning and throughout the duration of a course allows students to explore the civic dimensions of professional and technical communication, situating them as engaged designers and active members of their communities.