Developing an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an important precursor to pursuing a STEM career. Given the United States’ relatively low standings in science and math compared to similar industrialized nations and its desire to be competitive in an increasingly STEM-based global economy, policy makers are...
Between 1815 and 1830, the western Atlantic experienced a surge in maritime piracy. The United States was confronted with the ancient specter of hostis humani generis, the enemy of all, which threatened the safety and prosperity of the young maritime nation. Questions emerged: Who was responsible for policing international waters?...
My dissertation, “Talking Drum: Chicago’s WVON Radio and the Sonorous Image of Black Lives, 1963-1983,” studies WVON radio as a mediating institution of the black public sphere in Cold War Chicago. “Talking Drum” explores how WVON celebrated, represented, and mobilized black public life in the mid-twentieth century amid a dominant...
Parents are visiting the Internet in increasing numbers for guidance about the dental health of their children and are bringing this information into appointments with their children's pediatric dentists. Since the impact of this phenomenon on dental discussions is largely unknown, this study was conducted to discover what factors influence...
Teasing is commonplace in our social interactions (Kowalski, 2007). Due to its paradoxical nature it can be employed to produce both positive and negative outcomes (Keltner et al., 1998) however, the ambiguity and subjectivity in teasing can make it susceptible to misinterpretation (Kowalski, 2000; 2007; Kruger et al., 2006). The...
This study examines rhetorical practices through which disenfranchised women developed tenable political identities and integrated themselves into the public realm in the Pacific Northwest between 1868 and 1912. Through close analysis of rhetorical activities in which thousands of women participated--including club discourse, public commemoration, legal advocacy, petition work, and publication--it...
This dissertation focuses on the contribution of Joseph Addison and his London newspaper The Spectator to the modern "social imaginaries" (Charles Taylor) of public, market and nation. Addison's championing of perspicacity in prose and detachment in aesthetic judgment created protocols of "stranger sociality" (Michael Warner) that made participation in these...
Upward influence is an important vehicle for employee participation in work and decision-making. Research suggests that the forms and success of upward influence vary according to agent attributes, the supervisor-employee relationship, and the work context (Waldron, 1999; Wilson, 2002). Unexamined within this array are employee attempts at shaping their own...
This dissertation is a textual history of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the American independence movement during the first half of 1776. The study uses the methodologies and vocabularies of rhetorical studies, early modern history, and political theory to analyze the 180-degree turn in colonial public opinion away from a...
This dissertation concerns the rhetorical discourses that define a wireless technology revolution in the United States. This inquiry engaged in rhetorical criticism of key documents, texts and exigencies embedded within successive stages of the wireless revolution spanning twenty years. Three sites of discourse were analyzed: the wireless industry's vision and...