Browsing by Subject "Narratives"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    “The Golden Years” – Narratives of Aging on the AARP Website
    (2022-03-23) Kapinos, Aaron
    With the number of seniors over the age of 65 projected to grow rapidly over the coming decades, the conversation about aging will become ever more important. AARP, one of the largest media companies targeting seniors, will play a large role in shaping narratives of aging. As such, the case study that follows is an important contribution to the conversation about aging. I explore the narratives of aging related to the topic of health which currently exist on the AARP website, following in the footsteps of Bowen and Anderson, the only published articles studying AARP’s narratives of aging. My methods include a content inventory and thematic analysis of a sample of “Health” articles from the AARP website. My results show that there is no single dominant narrative of aging regarding health in AARP’s “Health” articles; AARP seems to use multiple narratives to approach their senior audience as agents with a moderate amount of agency.
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    Pragmatic ecocriticism and equipments for living.
    (2010-02) Werner, Brett Alan
    Over the last two centuries, books by American nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and John Muir have shaped individual behavior, inspired the creation of environmental organizations, and influenced public policy. Ecocritical scholars have shown how such texts encourage non-anthropocentric values and awareness of nature. Yet these classics of environmental literature, and subsequent ecocritical scholarship, have unintentionally promoted absolutist views of nature that entrench environmental conflicts and shut down communication, a problem rhetorical scholars call "ecospeak." In this dissertation I examine how writers might overcome ecospeak. I not only argue for alternative environmental narratives, but also propose a new approach to reading all environmental texts. I call this approach "pragmatic ecocriticism" as it draws significantly on John Dewey's philosophical pragmatism, by weakening dualist understandings such as that of "humans and nature"; by examining value pluralism; and by focusing on narratives in which writers make decisions and take action in the face of complex and uncertain social-environmental situations. Such a rhetorical approach draws heavily on Kenneth Burke's notion that literary texts serve as equipment for living through dramatic rehearsal's role in moral imagination. I examine whether and how three recent texts avoid the problem of ecospeak by offering more pragmatic narratives: The Pine Island Paradox by Kathleen Dean Moore (2004); Hunting for Hope by Scott Russell Sanders (1998); and Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber (2001). Although all of these books are part of the larger genre of environmental writing and literature, they pragmatically engage the complexity of contemporary social and environmental issues facing readers today. Moore links human-centered and nature-centered ethics and values in the context of decisions Moore encounters daily. Sanders emphasizes social hope and bounded conflict rather than despair and divisiveness in the face of social-environmental crisis. Steingraber addresses the relationship between human health and environmental pollution in the context of pregnancy and childbirth. As a result, these texts constitute a sub-genre of environmental writing, representing more pragmatic texts able to move beyond ecospeak and encourage readers to engage each other in more productive ways.
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    Trickster skins: narratives of landscape, representation, and the Miami Nation.
    (2011-07) Shoemaker, Scott Michael
    This dissertation, Trickster Skins: Narratives of Landscape, Representation, and the Miami Nation, reinterprets sites of Miami history through the lenses of narrative and landscape. It combines Miami and Western forms of knowledge to reinterpret the complex relationships of landscape and representation within the Miami struggle against colonization and the narratives that have arisen from this struggle. It tells several stories of a small tribe that remained east of the Mississippi River after the era of Indian removal who have been neglected by the Federal Government and often misunderstood by academia and the general public. The Miami Nation of Indians of Indiana (MNI) has about 5,500 enrolled citizens. Remaining in their homeland after removal of nearly half of the Miami Nation in 1846, the Miami of Indiana struggled to retain their reserve lands and identity in the face of Federal, State, and local governmental efforts to systematically dissolve their land base and their inherent and reserved rights. These efforts hinged upon representations of the Miami people and landscape that worked to ignore and erase their continued presence in Indiana through various cultural and legal narratives ultimately denying their identity as American Indians and their recognition as a sovereign nation. Despite these efforts, this dissertation demonstrates the creative and continued resistance of the Miami in various ways. Drawing upon a myriad of sources, this dissertation focuses upon Miami narratives, pictorial and textual representations, efforts to retain their land base, public performance, museum collections and display, and legal battles. This focus examines how the relationships of the Miami people to land takes many forms and are integral to discussions of tribal sovereignty. The findings in this investigation provide alternative interpretations of these sites of Miami history and are informed by Miami narrative traditions.