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ETD Abstract Container

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Lived Ethos in Norwegian America: Rhetorical Education and Practice

Strandjord, Erika Claire
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1374050044

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
The rhetorical concept of ethos describes how people create character, authority, and identity in persuasive texts and acts. While ethos is usually understood as constructed in the moment, this study extends the scope of ethos to encompass everyday actions. Cultivating an ethos that is imitated and lived out in daily life and not just in textual productions means that the ethos becomes what this study calls lived ethos. This study uses rhetoric and folklore scholarship to theorize lived ethos and the rhetorical education that teaches this ethos. Furthermore, this study analyzes the rhetorical education presented by three institutions in the Norwegian-American community in order to examine how an education in lived ethos functions in the community. Chapter two explores how the fraternal organization Sons of Norway selected elements of the Norwegian and Norwegian-American past to create an admirable and imitable ethos for the present. Using archival materials that from the late years of World War I through the end of World War II, this chapter argues that Sons of Norway used exemplars to create a more-than-American identity that Norwegian Americans could generally identify with and also presented members with exemplars that spoke to the different interests and demographics in the community. Chapter three proposes a new site of rhetorical exploration: handcrafts. The work of two instructors, Harley Refsal and Kate Martinson, at the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah, Iowa demonstrates how handcraft education persuades students to take up Norwegian-American identifications. Martinson and Refsal use historical and contemporary exemplars, examples of craft, and the teaching of practice to persuade students to take up practices like woodcarving and nålbinding (a netting technique) as an expression of a Norwegian-American ethos. The learning and practicing of a handcraft leads to an ethos that is lived out in the everyday practice of the handcraft. Chapter four examines how Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor museum focused on immigrant history, persuades people to identify with their own immigrant history through the use of imaginative empathy, engaging the senses, and taking action within historical environments. Two Norwegian immigrant farmhouses and a school give Norwegian-American visitors a chance to forge identifications with the histories of inequality, struggle, and tradition portrayed at the sites. Norwegian-American visitors create a deeper empathetic tie to the past and can reflect on how present-day practices and everyday life are tied to the past. Lived ethos links individuals to communities by bringing the past into the present and by persuading community members to see everyday practices as expressions of identity. Lived ethos invites scholars to consider how everyday rhetorical acts shape the world around us and lead to complex identifications that cannot be reduced to a single label like “American.” The move to a more complicated understanding of ethos as it is lived in daily life supports an understanding of individuals and communities as complicated, shifting, and most importantly, mutually sustaining. Lived ethos enables a rich understanding of identity and rhetorical strategies that use the past to shape the present and open doors for analysis, reflection, and pedagogy.
Nan Johnson, Dr. (Advisor)
Dorothy Noyes, Dr. (Committee Member)
James Fredal, Dr. (Committee Member)
Elizabeth Weiser, Dr. (Committee Member)
311 p.
Ethnic Studies; Rhetoric
rhetoric; rhetorical education; ethos; ethnic identity; fraternal organizations; folk art; handcrafts; museums

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Strandjord, E. C. (2013). Lived Ethos in Norwegian America: Rhetorical Education and Practice [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1374050044

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Strandjord, Erika. Lived Ethos in Norwegian America: Rhetorical Education and Practice. 2013. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1374050044.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Strandjord, Erika. "Lived Ethos in Norwegian America: Rhetorical Education and Practice." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1374050044

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1374050044
668
© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.