Browsing by Author "Vasby Anderson, Karrin, committee member"
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Item Open Access Mobility in the Bakken: rhetorical place-making in contested Native and white rural space(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Miller, Henry D., author; Dickinson, Greg, advisor; Vasby Anderson, Karrin, committee member; Schneider, Lindsey, committee memberThis thesis engages the intricacies of oil extraction in and around the Bakken region through confronting rhetorical modes by which settler colonialism is practiced and resisted in a modern context. Today, oil boomtowns rhetorically transform a modern-day frontier and reestablish a colonial order that justifies resource extraction and alters spatial relations on the North Dakota landscape. Using in-situ rhetorical criticism, I methodologically weave myself into the texts as both a critic and participant in how space is produced. This thesis consists of an introduction, two main analytical chapters, and a conclusion. In the first analytical chapter, I argue Watford City produces spaces and narratives of whiteness that normalize settler colonialism and situate white bodies as natural occupants of oil boom space. Serving as a metaphor for whiteness, oil fracturing or "fracking" functions as a rhetorical design of both city and museum. In the next analytical chapter, I explore the complexity of overlapping white and Native spaces on the tribal municipalities of New Town and Four Bears Village. To rhetorically comprehend the oil boom spatially on the Fort Berthold Reservation, it is necessary to understand how place is constructed through the production of archived memories and survivance. By situating both Native and white space next one another, this thesis argues that oil boom spaces in North Dakota are being (re)occupied by predominantly white male bodies that hinder the livability of Native bodies in Native spaces. All the while, the Fort Berthold Reservation resists settler colonial practices through everyday acts that decolonize space and place through archived memory and survivance.Item Open Access "One nation under God?": a call for secular rhetorical criticism(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Lee, Kristina M., author; Dunn, Thomas R., advisor; Vasby Anderson, Karrin, committee member; Gibson, Katie, committee member; Cloud, Doug, committee memberThis dissertation explores the need for secular rhetorical criticism, an approach to rhetorical scholarship that centers questions of power, privilege, and marginalization in relation to ir/religious pluralism. I contend that such an interconnected rhetorical approach to studying religion would be beneficial in creating a more cohesive conversation within rhetorical scholarship on the relationship of religious pluralism and power. Secular rhetorical criticism is fundamentally concerned with the lives, experiences, and voices of the ir/religiously marginalized and recognizes religious nationalism as part of a hegemonic system that privileges religious homogeneity and inhibits religious pluralism. In four chapters, I demonstrate the utility of engaging in secular rhetorical criticism by offering different approaches to analyzing the implementation of the phrase "under God" into the U.S. pledge of allegiance in 1954. While the phrase "under God" in the pledge is largely framed as example unifying "American civil religion" or benign "ceremonial deism," I argue that in 1954 the pledge was transformed into a theistnormative ritual that promoted a Christian nationalist political imaginary while containing Atheists and secularism. In chapter one, I draw on secular rhetorical criticism to urge scholars to be self-reflective of how their own scholarly language and practices maintain religious hegemonies. Specifically, I point to how "under God" as "civil religion" perpetuates the Myth of Religious Tolerance and I offer the conception of theistnormativity as a more critical descriptor for the fusion of belief in God and national identity. In the next chapter, I urge scholars to utilize secular rhetorical criticism as a lens for considering who is contained and negated by theistnormative texts. By analyzing advocates' justification of the new pledge, I demonstrate how religious and political leaders utilized the rhetorical strategy of prophetic dualism to frame the new pledge as a way to contain Atheists and Secularism. In chapter three, I reflect on how scholars engaging in secular rhetorical criticism need to utilize non-traditional methods to analyze the voices of the ir/religiously marginalized. I demonstrate how the gossip method can be used to speculate about how evidence from archived letters and newspapers suggests political leaders knowingly mischaracterized who supported and opposed the change to the pledge. Finally, I urge scholars to utilize secular rhetorical criticism to disrupt the assumption that the contemporary tensions between secularists and Christian nationalists emerged in the 1960s-1970s. By analyzing the political vocabularies of those writing to President Eisenhower and Congress in response to the new pledge in 1954, I demonstrate how supporters viewed the change as a confirmation of a Christian nationalist political imaginary while those who opposed it saw the new pledge as a threat to democracy from the perspective of a secular political imaginary. Using secular rhetorical criticism to guide my analysis of each chapter, I argue that in 1954 the pledge was transformed into a theistnormative ritual that advanced a Christian nationalist political imaginary while containing Atheists and secularism as part of a larger spiritual-industrial complex. This dissertation looks to the history of the 1950s to reflect on how, in 2022, Christian nationalists are establishing a new spiritual-industrial complex. Rhetorical scholars need an approach to studying rhetoric that will challenge and disrupt this undemocratic movement that undermines the values of religious freedom, tolerance, and equality.Item Open Access The failure effect: why you think she can't win(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Brandon, Melissa R., author; Martey, Rosa Mikeal, advisor; Kodrich, Kris, committee member; Wolfgang, David, committee member; Vasby Anderson, Karrin, committee member; Khrebtan-Horhager, Julia, committee memberThis dissertation analyzes how modern media coverage and framing of women political candidates reinforces and sustains what I term the Failure Effect. The Failure Effect is a complex combination of gender-based expectancies and cognitive processes including cultural cognition, motivated reasoning, and pragmatic bias, which are amplified and reinforced by media framing techniques that ultimately disadvantage women candidates. I argue the Failure Effect causes voters to doubt a woman candidate's electability even when she is an otherwise qualified candidate, resulting in voters choosing a man candidate at the ballot box because they believe She Can't Win. Despite progress toward gender parity in politics, women continue to hold a significantly smaller portion of political offices than men, particularly at the executive level. Investigating this issue, I examine the history of women candidates in the U.S., gender-based social role expectations, journalistic norms, the attention cycle model, and symbolic annihilation in connection with women political candidates. The study conducted considers the impact of commonly used media framing techniques, specifically strategic game frames, on political outcomes and the notions voters may hold about the electability of a woman candidate. This dissertation argues that despite progress, gender parity in politics remains a distant goal. The research question posed in this study yielded results that both supported the argument of the dissertation as well as surprising results that are ripe for future investigation and potentially the future success of women political candidates. This study asks: How do media frame ideas about executive-level women candidates' electability? To investigate this question, I examined the framing of news stories in four major national newspapers in the United States and the coverage generated about the six women presidential candidates who ran during the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary. This qualitative thematic analysis found eight primary strategic game frames and several additional sub-frames that were applied to the women candidates. The results of this analysis provide support for the primary argument of this dissertation – the Failure Effect, and how media framing of these candidates causes voters to believe that She Can't Win.