UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    Embodied Ethos: Negotiations of Authority, Credibility, and Trust in Roman Republican Coinage and Renaissance Texts
    (2019) Vlahovici-Jones, Gabriela A.; Valiavitcharska, Vessela; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    “Embodied Ethos” explores how coins negotiate rhetors’ ethos in antiquity and how Renaissance texts illustrated with coin images reconstruct and appropriate the ethos of ancient coins. With a methodological framework that puts in conversation ancient rhetorical theories, modern theories in visual and material rhetoric, and cognitive linguistics, the project approaches ethos as an interweaving of authority, credibility, and trust, as well as a form of inter-subjectivity between rhetors and audiences. Applied to a discussion of early Greek and Roman coinage, this framework reveals that the negotiation of ethos occurs in relation to transcendental, social, or individual systems of power, truths, and values. An analysis of Roman Republican coins minted at the onset of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey suggests that the warrying factions use coin iconography and inscriptions to negotiate the leaders’ ethos and to mount responses to political crises. While Pompeian coinage invokes Rome’s past and elevates Pompey to transcendental status, Caesarean coinage invokes Rome’s future and encourages allegiance to Caesar as an individual. In the Renaissance, coin images import the ethos of ancient coins into printed texts. Guillaume Rouillé’s Promptuaire des medalles integrates coin images into literacy-based contexts and appropriates the ethos of ancient coins in order to energize the life of the text, to advance a form of literacy that balances oral and visual reading, and to help audiences negotiate their own ethos as readers. Madeleine de Scudéry’s Les Femmes illustres appropriates the ethos of ancient coins to support the ethos of women as marginalized rhetors. In this text, coin images invoke the public roles of famous women of antiquity, draw attention to the female orators as a community of speakers, and encourage audiences to accept and read a rhetorical text about women. Overall, the transmission of coin ethos from antiquity into the Renaissance suggests that, as objects of cultural significance, coins participate in complex networks of objects and texts and carry persuasive messages across cultures and time periods.
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    Instrument to Evidence to Argument: Visual Mediation of Invisible Phenomena in Scientific Discourse
    (2008-07-15) Buehl, Jonathan; Fahnestock, Jeanne; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation examines how scientists and scientific editors have approached specific problems related to visualization and visual argumentation in scientific texts. These problems are related to the following research questions: (1) How are new visualization practices established as scientifically credible? (2) How do scientists modify existing instrument output to make new visual arguments? (3) How do scientists use verbal and visual means to transform problematic data into acceptable support for novel claims? (4) What are the practical and ethical boundaries of modifying visual artifacts for scientific arguments? (5) How do scientists refute established (but incorrect) visualizations that have been widely accepted as accurate representations of reality? This project considers these issues rhetorically by examining a number of recent and historical cases. The first three case studies explore how scientists created both compelling and uncompelling visual arguments by mediating the visual output of instruments with rhetorical strategies. These case studies focus on visualizations from physical science: x-ray diffraction photographs, graphics establishing the theory of plate tectonics, and visualizations of atmospheric phenomena. In each case, visualizations articulated invisible phenomena in new ways, transforming unclear or seemingly unremarkable data into convincing knowledge claims. My analysis of these cases explores how scientists integrate visuals into the analogical, causal, transitive, symmetrical, and dissociation arguments that are so essential to the practice of science. The later case studies examine broader concerns regarding ethics, persuasion, and modern scientific visualization. I examine recent issues related to the digital generation and manipulation of scientific images and rhetorical issues related to scientists' increasing dependence on complicated computer algorithms for creating visual arguments.