Rhetoric Of Identity Research Articles

Corporate Rhetoric of Care and Nurse Identity in Times of COVID-19

This article draws on Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation to examine the ideology behind the language and images of a web-based video Johnson & Johnson created in 2020. The video promoted the company’s annual “Nurses Innovate QuickFire Challenge”—a grant competition for nurses’ innovations. In our analysis, we found that the video created four main discourses of care: nurses as innovators, technologies as care, nurses as heroic, ministering angels, and Johnson & Johnson as an empowerer of nurses. Building on the positive, but contested, identity of nurses as heroes during the pandemic, Johnson & Johnson’s video connected heroism with technological innovation, enacting a problematic vision of care and nursing identity that figures technological innovation as not only a responsibility but a moral obligation of nurses. Through their sponsorship of research and design work with these nurse heroes and innovators, Johnson & Johnson also bolstered its own corporate identity as a caring supporter and empowerer of nurses.

A LaconianDeipnonin a PersianSkenē: Food-Based Identity Rhetoric in theHistories

This article examines two instances in the Histories (1.133.2, 9.82.1–3) where Herodotus compares Greek and Persian meals to one another. Although these comparisons appear to reinforce identity rhetoric which sets a Greek “Us” against a Persian “Them,” I argue that when situated within the larger narrative of the Histories and Herodotus’ discussions of ethnic foodways, the comparisons reinforce the basic similarity of Persians and Greeks as peoples whose diet depends on sitos, or cooked grain. This similarity in diet suggests a similarity in identity as Herodotus destabilizes contemporary identity rhetoric opposing Greeks (as a whole or as individual groups) and Persians.

Identity Rhetoric for Corporate Diplomacy

Identity Rhetoric for Corporate Diplomacy

“Everyone Thinks They’re Special”: How Schools Teach Children Their Social Station

Sociologists have identified many ways that childhood inequalities promote social reproduction. These inequalities are not always explicitly linked to what children are taught about their position and direction in the world, what I term their social station. Extant case studies find that social station socialization has meritocratic underpinnings (e.g., elite boarding schoolers are taught they are the “best of the best”). But societal changes, including increased emphasis on identity in educational institutions’ and employers’ evaluative practices, raise the prospect of similar changes in childhood socialization. I conducted three years of observations in two racially diverse elementary schools—one upper-middle class, the other working class—supplemented by interviews with 101 students, teachers, and parents. Students were taught markedly different lessons about their social station, but neither school predicated this on meritocratic achievement narratives. Overall, children at the upper-middle-class school were taught to see themselves as always-already special because of their internal qualities. Children at the working-class school were taught to see themselves as conditionally good if they adhered to external rules. Variations were visible for Asian American girls at the upper-middle-class school and poor students and Black students at the working-class school. I discuss the importance of school socialization and the implications of discrimination, identity rhetoric, and individualism for social reproduction.

(Re)constructing Gay, a Classroom, and a Journey to Rhetorical Listening

This article explores Ratcliffe’s (2005) theory of rhetorical listening and the means of utilizing it to interpret and facilitate conversations around gay identities, especially between teachers and students in the classroom. Conversations around sexual identities in classrooms have changed the way in which teachers and students communicate, as well as the way conversations are approached to the point of becoming nonexistent. By these conversations becoming nonexistent, gay identities become isolated in the classroom, therefore silencing what could become rhetorical opportunities for growth. I utilize rhetorical listening as a pedagogical strategy against the weaponization of the word gay. Using Ratcliffe’s (2005) original theory of listening pedagogically as a foundation, I build on listening’s potential to address controversial or highly charged rhetoric around issues of identity, in this case, utilizing the word gay in the classroom. I elaborate on the theory of rhetorical listening and its implications—raising awareness of identification and constructing conversations that can be applied in listening to identity rhetoric in pedagogical settings. Finally, this paper suggests using rhetorical listening pedagogy in classrooms and illustrates a series of arbitrations that show rhetorical listening as a tool for application in discussing issues of queer identity in the classroom.

Justification by Race: Wesley Swift’s White Supremacy and Anti-Semitic Theological Views in His Christian Identity Sermons

This article explores the discourses of Minister Wesley Albert Swift (1913–1970), one of the original and leading proponents of Christian Identity, a racial theology movement which emerged in the United States after World War II. It is not the aim of this study to analyze the discourse of Christian Identity as an isolated element, but to understand its interrelation with the political-religious culture of the country during the 1950s and 1960s. Christian Identity rhetoric may be understood based on its socio-historical context. During the formulative years of Christian Identity, nuclear anxieties, along with the fear of Communist infiltration, were deeply present within the white supremacist and their anti-Semitic views. At the same time, the civil rights movement of African Americans stimulated violent white supremacy politics and rhetoric by the extreme right. Combining the white hegemonic fear of minority advances in American society, Christian Identity was created as a cult for the racist right. As such, it attempted to legitimized white supremacy and perpetuate the Judeo-Communist Conspiracy myth. Race — as a biological issue that reflects the spiritual essence of a person — is the central element of anthropology built by Christian Identity, which claims the white race was literally created in the image of God. Therefore, they argue, it is the only race predestined for salvation. As an expression of an extreme Calvinist world view, Wesley Swift constructed a Christian theology that ideologically unified different political strategies of the postwar extreme right, which continues to this day.

The Charnegroes: Black Africans and the Ontological Conflict in Catalonia

This paper frames an in depth reflection on the current social and political changes and the emerging phenomenon of body politics of migrant and racialized groups in Europe. The ongoing discussion aims to address the meaning of “being” Catalan for Black Africans in Catalonia. It is grounded on a criterion of ontological commitment and the epistemological aspect of ethnography. I dig into the debate about what makes a racial identity salient in the context of national identity rhetoric. I look thoroughly at the outcomes of the encounter between Black African migrants and the constant resignification of Catalan national identity. I aim to disentangle the racial premises and tackle what Black Africans share once the racial questions are removed. My approach stands within the growing field of postcolonial criticism to understand historical continuities and ontological conflicts. I focus on culture, race, and identity to analyze the cultural dynamics of Senegalese migrants and Equatoguinean communities within the national identity building process in Catalonia. I coined a new concept, Charnegroes, to propose a practical explanation of the emergence of body politics and the changing reality of the relationship between the “us” and the “other” under the recurrent transitions between old and new, colonial and postcolonial, the past and the future.

Rhetoric of Food Authenticity and National Identity in the New Media

The global discourse on food often pivots around the issue of food security. With the new media, the discourse of food as a signifier of a national identity is constantly renewed and contested. This constant renewal and perpetual debate about food authenticity as the nexus of national identity from the Cultural Studies perspective is both the significance and the problem that the present study acknowledges and addresses. The aim of this paper is to identify, analyze and interpret the rhetorical strategies used by the media audience to reveal their attitude towards the issue. Using convenience sampling technique, a set of discourse samples is selected from the comment sections of articles on food authenticity across the new media. The corpus is analyzed using key concepts or canons in rhetoric, which are Logos, Ethos and Pathos. In addition, three rhetorical canons, invention, arrangement and style, are also used as units of analysis. The study finds that rhetors did not use the Logos (logic and fact) as one of their strategies to persuade readers to be on their side. Instead, they appealed to ethos (character and credibility) and Pathos (emotion). This evinces the idea that the media audience writing in a comment section in the new media are not basing their writing on the need to appeal to logic and fact (Logos), or proactively, but instead they are more reactionary (personal and emotive). This finding contributes towards the understanding of the media audience’s rhetorical strategies in the new media.

The Discourses of Identity in Hellenistic Erythrai: Institutions, Rhetoric, Honour and Reciprocity

Abstract Recent research in the field of New Institutionalist analysis has developed the view that institutions are grounded not only upon authoritative rules but also upon accepted practices and narratives. In this paper I am interested in the ways in which honorific practices and accounts of identity set out in ancient Greek inscriptions contribute towards the persistence of polis institutions in the Hellenistic period. A diachronic survey of Erythraian inscriptions of the classical and Hellenistic periods gives an impression of the adaptation and proliferation of forms of discourse established in the classical period. It demonstrates the ongoing prominence of the rhetoric of identity in conversations that went on not only between peer polities and within real or imagined kinship groups but also in negotiations between powerful and weak state entities and in inward-facing discourses on euergetism.

Two Barbary Captives: Allegiance Through Self-Interest and International Networks, 1785–1796

The correspondence and diaries of two American merchant sailors, James Cathcart and Captain Richard O'Brien, who were held captive in Algiers from 1785 to 1795–96, bridge and complicate the two literatures of commercial-diplomatic and informal networks. During this period, the nascent American government and over one hundred of its citizens were held hostage by the North African "Barbary States" of Algiers, Morocco, Tripoli, and Tunis. Using the letters and diaries of the two most prolific captives, Cathcart and O'Brien, this article shows that the captives successfully penetrated diplomatic networks and the minds of sympathetic diplomats such as David Humphreys, who exploited the captives' plight to help his own longstanding campaign of fostering national identity. The captives similarly deployed the pragmatic skills and style of correspondence they learned as merchant sailors to self-interestedly weave their cause for liberty into the emerging national narrative. These interventions echoed the sentiments and rhetoric of participants in Shays's Rebellion (Massachusetts, 1786–87) and the Whiskey Rebellion (western Pennsylvania, 1791–94). Yet perhaps because of the very different (and, in fact, conflicting) goals of American captives in Algiers and rebels in rural Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the ever-increasing scholarship on American captives in Barbary has overlooked how these nonelite citizens' campaigns were intertwined. Their shared political rhetoric and notions of national identity were developed and deployed thousands of miles apart, likely thanks to their shared backgrounds in self-interested participation in the revolution and the captives' ready access to newspapers and personal correspondence that kept them informed of domestic crises on the American frontier. Literary analysis of American captives in Barbary is typically juxtaposed with Indian captivity narratives, which is especially applicable to fictional Barbary narratives, and a much smaller number of published nonfictional accounts. The comparison does not hold for the more abundant short-form correspondence, which represents a more significant and untapped opportunity for scholarly analysis of the epistolary styles of the two most prominent American captives in Algiers, who echoed and engaged with the rhetoric and ideas of rebels on the young nation's terrestrial frontier as they were being held captive on the maritime frontier. This article argues that, through the captives' political rhetoric and canny exploitation of their positions in informal transnational networks, we can gain new insights into how nonelite citizens, whether in rural Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or Algiers, drew on a shared language of liberty and expectations of popular participation in policy development to simultaneously influence the terms of national identity and reinvent themselves.

Divided groups need leadership: A study of the effectiveness of collective identity, dual identity, and intergroup relational identity rhetoric

AbstractReducing intergroup conflict is a significant leadership challenge. Leaders can alleviate conflict by promoting a collective, dual, or intergroup relational identity, but they should avoid provoking subgroup identity distinctiveness threat. Drawing on intergroup leadership theory, we conducted an experiment (N = 184) examining evaluations of a leader who promoted a dual, collective, or intergroup relational identity under low or high subgroup identity distinctiveness threat. We hypothesized that identity distinctiveness threat would improve evaluations of a leader promoting an intergroup relational identity, and worsen evaluations of a leader promoting a collective identity. Although a leader promoting a dual identity is typically preferred to one promoting a collective identity, we expected a leader promoting dual identity to receive worse evaluations than a leader promoting an intergroup relational identity. These hypotheses were supported, providing additional support for intergroup leadership theory and demonstrating the utility of employing intergroup relational identity rhetoric.

Amanda Nell Edgar, Culturally Speaking: The Rhetoric of Voice and Identity in a Mediated Culture

Amanda Nell Edgar, <i>Culturally Speaking: The Rhetoric of Voice and Identity in a Mediated Culture</i>

Identity rhetoric in Chinese radio-mediated medical consultation

While previous studies highlight the dynamic feature of identity construction, little attention has been paid to the identity work within the overall structure of a conversation and to the interrelations between different aspects of identity constructed. Drawing on a sizable recording of radio-mediated medical consultations (RMMC), this study aims to explore the various aspects of medical consultants' identities and the dynamic shift among the different aspects. It is found that the consultants construct three prominent aspects of identity, namely, a consultant with medical expertise, a consultant with peer friendships, and a consultant as a sales representative, each manifesting some variability in terms of pragma-linguistic realisations and occurrences in different stages of the overall structure of RMMCs. By intermingling the three aspects and using each at appropriate times, the consultants skilfully direct the conversation to what they want. Thus, they demonstrate what might be termed as identity rhetoric in constructing, performing, and deploying their identities to achieve some communicative needs.

A Negritude como Memória, Revolta e Solidariedade em Aimé Césaire

Considered one of the most important and characteristic contributions of Caribbean thought, the concept of Negritude is generally translated as a reaction to French colonialism and a glorification of the identity of African cultures and societies. However, since Aime Cesaire presented it, the concept has become internationalised and has not stopped its movement of continuous creation, transforming and expanding its original meaning, which generates many controversies in its interpretation. In order to contribute to the debate on what Negritude would be for Aime Cesaire, in this article we propose to investigate the subject by analysing the author's most important works and interviews through the prism offered by Reinhart Koselleck's History of Concepts. We will examine the meanings given by Cesaire from the appearance of the term for the first time in 1935, in his article Negrerie: jeunesse noire et assimilation, to his 1987 Discourse on Negritude. Cesaire presents Negritude as a collective memory, a necessary revolt against European reductionism, an awareness of difference, and fidelity and solidarity. We will see that Cesaire's concept of Negritude cannot be understood if it is not related to his criticism of colonialism and that the question of identity must also be linked to his ideas of memory and solidarity. However, more than political ideology, more than identity rhetoric, we will see that in order to understand the complexity and scope of the concept, it is necessary, as Cesaire wanted, to consider it from a literary and poetic point of view and as a personal ethic.

'The past we harvest that was yours': the rhetoric of national identity and the legacy of the unknown warrior in New Zealand memory

In 2004 the remains of a First World War soldier were disinterred from the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery in France and returned to New Zealand to be reburied in the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the National War Memorial in Wellington. The warrior’s original resting place in the Somme was in a Commonwealth (formerly Imperial) War Graves Commission cemetery.

Historia y memoria nacional en el discurso jurídico − el juicio de ADPF 186

El presente artículo busca discutir sintéticamente los argumentos del debate sobre el sistema de cuotas para negros en la enseñanza universitaria, objeto de un intenso debate en la última década y de la decisión de la Suprema Corte Brasileña en la Acción de In-cumplimiento de Precepto Fundamental n. 186. Examina de qué modo la referida decisión judicial, al declarar la constitucionalidad del Plano de Metas de Inclusión Étnico-Racial, instituido por la Universidad de Brasilia, recurrió a argumentos sobre la historia brasileña y la identidad nacional. Examina cómo la igualdad y la diferencia fueron articuladas a la narrativa sobre el pasado de las instituciones jurídicas y sociales, y de qué modo la decisión pretendió revisar las presuposiciones de una identidad nacional homogeneizada cuyo paradigma fue construido, sobre todo, en la década de 1930. La decisión puede ser identificada como un nuevo momento de la retórica identitaria por aceptar la existencia de espacios de conflicto en la comunidad nacional que se expresan no sólo en demandas por una distribución equitativa de los recursos públicos destinados a la educación, sino también por la construcción de la memoria colectiva. La decisión propone el debate sobre el modo en que las instituciones jurídicas redimensionan las identidades nacionales, teniendo en vista las demandas por la tutela de los derechos fundamentales.

The Rhetoric of Identity in Right- and Left-wing Populism: A Brief Survey

The Rhetoric of Identity in Right- and Left-wing Populism: A Brief Survey

How the changing relationship between labour and political party influenced growth of autonomous labour unions in Taiwan

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to find how the changing relationship between labour and political parties influenced the growth of reasonably independent labour unions in Taiwan.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have drawn on data collected through in-depth interviews of union officials, labour activists and members of legislature from two major political parties in Taiwan.FindingsThe authors found that the breach between labour and political parties was affected by the eventualities contemplated in democratisation. Though the DPP (Minchin-tang/Democratic Progressive Party) provided the initial “shot in arm”, autonomous unions have not necessarily grown underneath DPP’s dominion. Political liberalisation of Taiwan’s industrial relations systems has gained more momentum when the DPP was in opposition than in power. Anti-incumbency pushed independent unions to sway the opposition’s backing when Kuomintang (KMT/the Chinese Nationalists) was in power and not to that extent when the KMT stepped down. The autonomous labour movement in Taiwan was initially influenced by the changing relationship between labour and ruling parties. However, the movement was subsequently shaped by the ethnic and political characteristics based on the historical divide between the mainlanders and Taiwanese and Taiwan’s changing economic landscape.Research limitations/implicationsSpecific limitations include the subjectivity of the inference and lack of generalisability of the findings that are based on interviews with two out of three players of industrial relations system.Practical implicationsBecause of globalisation and global financial crisis that brought together a new generation of workforce who hold individualistic values, have lesser faith in collectivism and perform new forms of work where unionisation is no more relevant, the autonomous labour movement in Taiwan was hugely impacted.Originality/valueGrowth of independent unions is not being shaped by democratisation alone. If we refocus the debate about democracy’s implied relationship with the rhetoric of national identity, one can see the crucial role played by the changing economic landscape and ethnic divisions ingrained in political origins.

Love of nation and Heimat-oriented education in Imperial Japan of the 1930s: the rhetoric of Japanese identity in peripheral regions

ABSTRACT Heimat -oriented education (local-oriented education) flourished in Imperial Japan of the 1930s, inspired by Heimatkunde (local studies) in Germany’s elementary schools. This paper explores the rhetoric which naturalised the shift from love of Heimat to love of nation in Heimat-oriented education in Imperial Japan of the 1930s, focusing on Heimat-oriented education in peripheral regions to which Japanese identity and non-Japanese identity were attributed. Heimat-oriented education in peripheral regions was conducted mostly in accordance with the official rhetoric “similar but not equal”, yet also partially putting a spin on it. The spin had the effect of strengthening the naturalisation of the shift from love of Heimat to love of nation.

Notes and Comments

Notes and Comments Paul Kollman C.S.C. Nelson H. Minnich Prize The Nelson H. Minnich Prize for Best Article in the Catholic Historical Review in 2018 is awarded to Brian R. Larkin, professor of history, College of St. Benedict/St. John's University, Minnesota. His article "Beyond Guadalupe: The Eucharist, the Cult of Saints and Local Religion in Eighteenth-Century Mexico City" appeared in the Spring issue (Volume 104, No. 2). In this groundbreaking article, Professor Larkin demonstrates that the Virgin of Guadalupe was not the preeminent Marian devotion of colonial Mexico. The Guadalupan devotion was rising, but always second in preference to Our Lady of Sorrows. He also proposes that Mexican devotion to local virgins, saints, and Christ images never exceeded devotion to such universal Catholic devotions as the Eucharist. He proposes that otherworldly concerns such as eternal salvation and release from purgatory be considered important motivations for religious gifts and bequests. Professor Larkin's contribution lies in his argument for greater balance in examining colonial Mexican piety. He finds a presentism in considering the colonial past, first by imposing on that era the Guadalupan domination that later generations produced, and second by focusing on the local/exotic/particular over the universal in developing an understanding of colonial Mexican piety. While Robert Morgan's Spanish American Saints and the Rhetoric of Identity, 1600–1810 emphasizes American discontinuities, this author balances that attention to the unique with equal attention to the more commonplace or universally recognized. Thoroughly grounded in primary sources, the author uses tables to demonstrate the range of devotions present in the minds of devotees as they wrote their last wills and testaments. In acknowledging evidence that does not support his arguments; he admits that further study is needed on the widespread popularity of Our Lady of Sorrows or St. Anthony of Padua. He places the Mexican experience in wider contexts: Tridentine reforms of Catholicism, papal declarations, Spanish piety, official sponsorship of particular devotions, and others. This strengthens the emphasis on the importance of universal devotions in relationship to local Mexican novelties. On account of its outstanding research and original contributions, "Beyond Guadalupe: The Eucharist, the Cult of Saints and Local Religion in Eighteenth-Century Mexico City" deserves recognition of the Nelson H. Minnich Prize for 2018. [End Page 401] Newberry Library The Newberry Library's Center for Renaissance Studies proudly launches a new digital resource devoted to Italian paleography, sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Paleography, the study of the history of handwriting and scripts in books, manuscripts, and other documents, is essential for scholarly research in the humanities for the premodern period. Created and edited by Isabella Magni (Newberry Library), Lia Markey (Newberry Library), and Maddalena Signorini (Università di Roma-Tor Vergata) in collaboration with the University of Toronto Libraries Information Technology Services and the Walter J. Ong S.J. Center for Digital Humanities at St. Louis University, this new website provides pedagogical tools for the study of Italian vernacular handwriting from 1100 to 1700 using manuscripts in the Newberry collections as well as other US institutions. The new paleography site complements a resource devoted to French paleography launched in 2016, also funded by the Mellon Foundation and designed in partnership between the Newberry, Toronto, and St. Louis. Like the French site, the intended audience of the Italian site is varied: scholars preparing to conduct research in Italian archives; students studying Italian language, history and culture; curators, librarians, and archivists who work with manuscripts; calligraphers and graphic designers interested in historical scripts; and anyone who would like to experiment with transcribing early Italian documents. The site features 102 digitized manuscripts representing 7 different types of scripts and 3 difficulty levels. Each manuscript is paired with a transcription and a scholarly entry written by a specialist in the field. These background essays provide the historical, cultural, and at times codicological context for the manuscripts. Using the Ong Center's transcription tool, T-PEN, users of the site can transcribe the documents and save their transcriptions online. The site includes a handbook describing the various types of scripts and providing the history of the vernacular in medieval and Renaissance Italy. The...