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Corporeal Rhetorics: Embodied Composing and the Teaching of Writing

Garrett, Raina Brella

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, English.

"Corporeal Rhetorics" reclaims physical bodies as rhetorical and composing materials, calling for a close re-examination of the body's place in rhetoric and composition scholarship and pedagogy. Over the past decade, bodies have resurfaced as a compelling area of study in rhetoric and composition, although the meaning of this re-embodiment is contested and often (re)configured through different theoretical and methodological frames. I extend this conversation by focusing on bodies in situated composing practices and propose, more specifically, that studying bodies as rhetorical topoi makes a difference to composing, teaching, and the field of rhetoric and composition. A study of embodied composing raises larger, over-arching questions that re-emerge throughout my study, questions about the (dis)placement of the body in composing practices and composition pedagogies; about the normative body in western rhetorical traditions; about the shifting role of the rhetorical canons in multimodal composing processes; and last, about the interwoven relationship between embodiment and access.

Chapter One, “Embodied Composing as Material Practice: A Portrait of a Composer in Action,” provides a theoretical foundation for the project through a close-study of one composer's embodied invention. Through analyzing the composing processes of a stop-motion filmmaker, I demonstrate how the available means of persuasion emerge via a rich, material environment that constitutes bodily action and negotiation among disparate material parts, different digital technologies, and multiple, intersecting modalities.

Chapter Two, “Corporeal Rhetoric as Embodied Action: Composing in/through Bodily Motion,” develops an extended definition of corporeal rhetoric as embodied action by exploring a theory of bodies as rhetorical topoi in Petra Kuppers’ performance research projects and in Audre Lorde’s essays. I argue that both Kuppers and Lorde re-define the body as a rhetorical concept, a performative, intersectional place from which one locates available means for public persuasion.

Chapter Three, “Re-embodying New Media Scholarship: A Collaborative Interview with Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes,” examines a situated instance of the re-emergence of bodies in multimedia scholarship in the field of Rhetoric and Composition. Drawing from a personal interview with Alexander and Rhodes, I argue that composing with multimedia engages embodied and affective dimensions of rhetoric, but such composing methods must be accompanied by critical engagement with issues of bodily difference.

Chapter Four, “Accessing Embodied Delivery for Multimodal Composing,” recounts a teacher-research study, through which I develop a rhetorical concept, embodied delivery, as a pedagogical practice that makes more explicit the dynamic ways that bodies and delivery intersect. I draw from qualitative research to analyze how a study of bodies influenced writers new to multimodal video composing. I conclude with pedagogical interventions, situated moments in which a study of bodies as topoi encouraged me to re-invent pedagogical delivery. The findings of my project point to an expanded and hybrid view of multimodal composing that always includes physical, corporeal bodies.

Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, PhD (Committee Chair)
Jason Palmeri, PhD (Committee Member)
Heidi McKee, PhD (Committee Member)
Kate Ronald, PhD (Committee Member)
214 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Garrett, R. B. (2012). Corporeal Rhetorics: Embodied Composing and the Teaching of Writing [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1335727105

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Garrett, Raina. Corporeal Rhetorics: Embodied Composing and the Teaching of Writing. 2012. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1335727105.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Garrett, Raina. "Corporeal Rhetorics: Embodied Composing and the Teaching of Writing." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1335727105

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)