UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Malanych, Alexander
Dept./Program:
English
Year:
2014
Degree:
M.A.
Abstract:
Scholars in composition have long considered Kenneth Burke's work on identification fundamental to initiating a new understanding of rhetoric beyond persuasion. However, just as many scholars have criticized Burke's theory for the identity formation it assumes, the polarized epistemology it creates, the ethical questions it fails to answer, and the suboridnation of individual to community it often requires.
Analyzing the issues that Burke's theory produces, my thesis will engage with how rhetoricians today have attempted to corrector elucidate Burke's theory of identification by turning to his otherwork. However, as I will show, these theories still subordinate the individual in the rhetorr-audience relationship, rely heavily on performative identity, and fail to solve Burke's problem of identity construction as opposed identity revision.
Turning to queer Jewish theology, l argue that queer religious ritual and juridical innovation provides an important example of why new vocabulary is necessary to deal with constructing identity at individual and communal levels. Writing from positions of adaptation rather than compulsion, queer Jewish theologians integrate Jewish and queer experiences at the level of the individual body and thereby attempt to validate access to communally-recognized methods of knowledge making while also challenging how that knowledge is then reiterated by the community.
Analyzing the issues that Burke's theory produces, my thesis will engage with how rhetoricians today have attempted to corrector elucidate Burke's theory of identification by turning to his otherwork. However, as I will show, these theories still subordinate the individual in the rhetorr-audience relationship, rely heavily on performative identity, and fail to solve Burke's problem of identity construction as opposed identity revision.
Turning to queer Jewish theology, l argue that queer religious ritual and juridical innovation provides an important example of why new vocabulary is necessary to deal with constructing identity at individual and communal levels. Writing from positions of adaptation rather than compulsion, queer Jewish theologians integrate Jewish and queer experiences at the level of the individual body and thereby attempt to validate access to communally-recognized methods of knowledge making while also challenging how that knowledge is then reiterated by the community.