Deconstructing the rhetoric of fear in post 9/11 young adult literature

This study demonstrates how M.T. Anderson\u27s Feed (2002), Scott Westerfeld\u27s Uglies (2006), and Veronica Roth\u27s Divergent (2011) offer young adult readers alternative messages through tropes and rhetorical devices within a mediated reality. The outcome of these messages offers mixed messages about rebellion and conformity to young adults living in a post 9/11 global community. The development of this message begins with teens in Feed exploring a dystopian future where society is tied together through technology that eliminates boundaries. The teens within the story explore a world, for a week, where those boundaries are reestablished due to an act of terror, resulting in their being exposed to a new understanding--or clinging furtively to the old. In the second novel, Uglies , another dystopian society is deconstructed to examine the messages young adults are receiving when they are told that being pretty and compliant are safer alternatives to being an individual and taking risks to improve society. The third novel is Divergent , which further examines the rebellion motif prominent in contemporary young adult fiction, but ultimately and ironically conveying a message that conformity is the only safe route. The text has been viewed through the theoretical lens of the works of Kenneth Burke, specifically his theory of motives and identity, along with Ulrich Beck, a professor of sociology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, whose \u27risk society\u27 model compliments the ideas of Edmund Hussurl\u27s study into the field of phenomenology. The first chapter introduces my theoretical framework and the rhetorical laboratory, which includes socio-historical data about the concepts I use to establish my rhetorical analysis. I also have included secondary information about false memory syndrome and mediated reality to establish a baseline from which to explore third-party shared experiences in teenagers through literature. In the second through fourth chapters I have summarized the stories and offer rhetorical analysis that offers reconstructed alternative messages for readers. The fifth chapter offers my conclusion about the significance of the study. I also explore potential steps and other methods of research to help continue research in this field

Virtual Agency: A Hermeneutic Examination of the Network and Actors Within the Composition Classroom

This dissertation explores the visible and invisible rhetorical choices made in, around, and through the composition classroom and its community of practice, students, faculty, technologies, staff, and other undiscovered actors, through Actor Network Theory and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The discoveries will better situate the impact of identities and actancy within composed, hybrid worlds. Students, society, the world is now collectively connected and able to communicate, acquire knowledge, and interact on a virtual world stage. The exigence for this dissertation’s exploration is that Moore, et al. (2016) concluded that students did not make a connection between the technology they have access to normally communicate with in their personal lives and the technologies they used to produce ‘composition’ as writing assignments in the university setting. An attempt to continue as a voice in that conversation begins to look at individuals, who add the value of conversational testimonials, to the quantitative data that will begin to bridge what is known about technology and composition