113th Annual Conference - Portland, Oregon
Friday, November 6 - Sunday, November 8, 2015

Rhetorical Approaches to Literature I

Session Chair: 
Monica Limon, Caifornia State University, Fresno
Time: 
Session 5: Friday 5:40-7:10pm
Location: 
Salon III (ET)
Topic Area: 
Rhetorical Approaches to Literature

Presenters/Papers:

  1. Ahead of His Time: Tobias Smollet’s Environmental Rhetoric in Humphry Clinker
    Cayce Wicks, Florida International University
    This paper critically analyzes the environmental rhetoric used by Matthew Bramble, a character in Tobias Smollet’s novel Humphry Clinker, and suggests that this rhetoric gestures towards the environmental rhetoric of the future. In drawing connections between the rhetoric of the past and the present, this work illustrates the cyclical nature of discourse and ideas.
  2. “Your Story is My Story”:  Footnotes as Rhetorical Strategy in Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
    Kristin Brunnemer, Pierce College
    This paper explores how Sandra Cisneros’s and Junot Diaz’s recent novels utilize footnotes as an oppositional space for their narrators to question official history, popular memory, and societal mores.  The end result is a hyperlinked, cross-referencing narrative technique that mimics and models postmodern storytelling itself.  
Session Cancelled: 
No