A proposal for a non-modern rhetoric of social movements
Abstract
Rhetorical scholars in social movement studies have called for a theory that might explain the material-semiotic agency of people and technologies working in concert to effect change. This dissertation proposes Bruno Latour's actor-network theory (ANT) as theory that meets this call. ANT allows rhetorical scholars to analyze distributed agency, and it evinces ideological congruence with contemporary rhetoric and composition. Further, ANT is a rhetoric of inartistic proofs that investigates the available means of establishing co-agency. Rhetoricians who study social movements via empirical, hermeneutic, and mixed methods might use ANT to develop reciprocally beneficial knowledge with community and activist groups and produce additional frameworks for rhetorical scholarship.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Johnson-Sheehan, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Rhetoric|Social structure
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