Silence as a Rhetorical Device: Criticism, Praise and Practice
Exploration of the rhetorical use of silence and the theory of its rhetorical use chronologically (Ancient Egyptians, Christ, modern examples), strategically in political movements, and argumentative theory behind the rhetorical use of silence.
8 pages
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Review of Path to War (2002) starring Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland, and Alec Baldwin.
2 pages
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The New Communication: An Evolved Inversion of McLuhan’s Hot and Cool
Commentary on and prediction of the changes in presidential communication & national mass-discourse with the growth of Twitter based on Marshall McLuhan’s theory of “hot” and “cool” media elaborated in his essay Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. A proposal of an inversion of “hot” to “cool” and the contrary based on recent trends in President-Nation communication.
5 pages
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Popular Opinion Through the Crosshairs
An analysis of political rhetoric surrounding the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona at a rally for Representative Gabrielle Giffords through the lens of Aristotle’s interpretation of that which is necessary for classical deliberative oratory.
5 pages
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Politics as Morality, Force or Rhetoric
An investigative piece that synthesized seven political phases of the modern United States with models of society: Plato’s Republic, Burke’s Leviathan, and a model by Burke in which rhetoric is the mode of persuasion.
The paper analyzes the Civil Rights Movement, McCarthyism, Watergate, the debate surrounding nuclear power, the rhetoric of war (9/11) and the rhetoric of health care.
17 pages
