The Force of Rhetoric: From James Baldwin to the Era of Digital Media

• Název práce v češtině: Síla Rétoriky: Od Jamese Baldwina k Éře Digitálních Médií
• Název v anglickém jazyce: The Force of Rhetoric: From James Baldwin to the Era of Digital Media
• Klíčová slova: kultura výkonu|složení rétoriky|moc|řečnictví|občanská práva|platformy digitálních médií|svoboda projevu a vyjádření|kritická analýza|efektivní komunikace
• Klíčová slova anglicky: performance culture|rhetoric composition|power|oratory|civil rights|digital media platforms|freedom of speech and expression|critical analysis|effective communication
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2021/2022
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglofonních literatur a kultur (21-UALK)
• Vedoucí / školitel: doc. Erik Sherman Roraback, D.Phil.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 08.03.2022
• Datum zadání: 08.03.2022
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 14.03.2022
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 10.09.2024 00:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 11.08.2024
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 10.09.2024
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná studentem a finalizovaná
• Oponenti: Mgr. Pavla Veselá, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

Topic Characteristics:
In this thesis I will inquire into the subject of rhetoric used in the discourse of social rights activism connecting the modernity of the 1950’s and after, with the contemporary cultural context dominated by digital media technology to draw possible lines of compliment and contrast. The major purpose of this thesis is to reflect on the textual and intertextual connections among the chosen rhetorical devices and themes that have been appealing to the audiences in the latter half of the twentieth century in contrast to the present moment, revealing in this comparative process the differences and changes that have taken place, and more importantly, which vectors of change will continue playing a key role in the formation of rhetoric in the future, perhaps shaping its value as an autonomous innovative interdisciplinary field. The purpose of this research is to argue that a combined intellectual, pragmatic and critical approach to operating rhetoric can ‘deweaponise’ it to a versatile composition tool of effective representation and empowerment, conscious decision-making and problem-solving, amplified by the potential of mass media technology and data literacy.
Moreover, the thesis aims to enrich the seemingly insufficient supply of critical theory in regards to the contemporary pressing issues in relation to the spheres of cutting-edge technology. Therefore, the minor purpose is to contribute to the task of reconstructing a critical social theory for the present which explores more positive opportunities for the freedom of speech and expression to be exercised in the contemporary digital society.
From the past century in modernity, rhetoric will be represented by a profile of work, of among many talents, a writer and Civil Rights Movement leader, James Baldwin. The contemporary era’s field of rhetoric is decentralized, and major social media platform highlights will be taken as a representation of prominent cultural influence movements e.g. ‘cancel culture’ phenomena, etc. The main foci of this thesis are to include the analysis of the Civil Rights Movement era profile of Baldwin’s writing and public speaking and performance practices into the larger cultural analysis of contemporary state and forms of social activism rhetoric evolving in the digital space of media platforms.
The primary goal of this comparative study is to conduct a rhetorical analysis between the discourses of Civil Rights Movements of the 1950’s and onwards and the contemporary digital social media dominated era along the lines of compositional criticism with linguistic focus, e.g., syntactic-semantic and literary device analysis. Furthermore, it will explore the connection between the form and the function of rhetoric in the interaction with contemporary subjectivity in the context and its effects on identity formation and individualization both on the individual and societal levels in relation to the changing conditions of interpersonal communication. I will attempt to unlock formal features of social media platforms (e.g., rhetorical tools and linguistic innovation potential) that can guarantee the decentralized circulation of the right of freedom of speech and expression.
Therefore, I will attempt to create a balanced framework of cultural context to argue that despite the central authorities’ malignant attempts to disenfranchise the creator form their digital content in a contemporary digital platform dominant era, to reclaim media discourse to be the vantage point that better serves, regardless of the private or public nature of its content, rather than poorly governs.

Working hypotheses:
1. With the addition of rhetorical analysis to cultural studies and criticism it will be possible to better understand and to handle in a more democratic way the naturally appearing need to use persuasion as even the most homogenous communities reflect a certain degree of internal irreconcilable differences.
2. To defend the use of rhetorical analysis against its stigmatized image in the public eye that extracts each context’s most effective rhetorical techniques to be implied elsewhere, instead of radically privileging one side over the other, as a necessary part of the critical craft.
3. To verify — after James Baldwin’s comparing art to confession, a characteristic of his own largely autobiographical signature writing, — that writing (taken in the broadest sense of creative capacity to produce texts) out of “one’s own experience” (“Autobiographical Notes," in Notes of a Native Son, 1955) is a potent practice of grounding subjectivity in social reality without submission to conformity.
4. Public discourse does not require to be either inclusive or exclusive (as this binary couple outduels each other, as evidenced in the evaluation of ‘cancel culture’ consequences): neither overpowers what qualifies discourse as public, its decentralized and freely circulating access to the right to freedom of expression.
5. Other hypotheses:
The antithesis to the argument for inclusivity is the exclusivity: consider the example of Michel Foucault’s skeptical distance in the use of the notion “humanism”, which historically determined and excluded selected people into minority outgroups, of which James Baldwin is a remarkably representative speaker and advocate of change in the mentality through public awareness.
To inquire into the question what rhetorically efficient instruments, both in the discourses of the civil right era or in the contemporary period, have participated in the battle both against authority as well as in conformity with it

Methodology:
In my methodology I am going to rely on quantitative literature review. In this meta-analysis I will parse the analyzed texts in various forms: fictional, cultural, interviews, media posts and journals. The empirical theoretical part will be counterbalanced with an experimental approach that is going to be employed in the analytical part – the analysis of rhetorically effective devices. Their effects are to be addressed in the quantitative literature survey. In addition, I am going to include data from online journals and other digital platforms.
Taking its best influences of foundations of contemporary rhetoric from socially proactive discourse constructed by James Baldwin, the analysis will comparatively contextualize it alongside the contemporary cultural criticism of rhetoric from the combination, on the one hand, the American literary critic and theorist Fredric Jameson, and on another hand the continental philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard. The second purpose is to draw conclusions that would not only be justifying the sought after questions posed in the first part, but rather stimulate the potential problem-solving and critical thinking in the direction of ideals and conditions of rhetoric in the present. Some conclusions are not expected to be a one-size-fits-all approach to answers, rather it will review the queries and suggestions as the best ways that the rhetoric of social activism can meet the needs of the cutting edge digital media platform era, suggestions of preparing the transition for the revolution without immediately stepping into it. Certain conclusions, however, will purposefully seek out definitive trajectories that can contribute to the task of finding how the new ways of attaining freedom of speech and expression is possible in the contemporary cutting edge technological society, where culture and economy is arguably most prominently shaped by the technology of mass communications.

Seznam odborné literatury

References / Bibliography:
Primary sources:
Baldwin, James. Giovanni's Room. New York: Dell, 1985. Print.
Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain. New York: Dial, 1963. Print.
Baldwin, James. “If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?”. The New York Times, Sept. 25 2010. Web. .
Baldwin, James. “Sermons and Blues”. The New York Times, Mar.29, 1959. Web. .
Secondary sources:
Barr, Donald. “Go Tell It On the Mountain” The New York Times, May 17, 1953. Web. .
Baraka, Amiri. “James Baldwin: His Voice Remembered; We Carry Him as Us.” The New York Times, Dec. 20, 1987. Web. .
Baudrillard, Jean. The System of Objects. London; New York: Verso, 1968.
Booth, Wayne C. “The Rhetorical Stance.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 14, no. 3, National Council of Teachers of English, 1963, pp. 139–45. JSTOR, JSTOR. Web. .
Booth, Wayne C. The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1988.
Bigsby, C. W. E. “The Divided Mind of James Baldwin.” Journal of American Studies, vol. 13, no. 3, 1979, pp. 325–342. JSTOR, JSTOR. Web. .
Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York, New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.
Jameson, Fredric. The Modernist Papers. London, New York: Verso; First Edition, 1st Printing, 2007.
Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious. London: Routledge Classics, 2nd edition, 2002.
Ottery, James R. “‘Who Are They and What Do They Have to Do With What I Want To Be?’: The Writing of Multicultural Identity and College Success Stories for First-Year Writers.” Identity Papers: Literacy and Power in Higher Education, edited by Bronwyn T. Williams, University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press, 2006, pp. 122–138. JSTOR, JSTOR. Web. .
Campbell, James. "Sorrow Wears and Uses Us." The New York Times, The New York Times, 2010. Web. .
Karefa-Smart, Aisha. “Remembering His House” Medium, Medium, 8 Mar. 2017. Web. .
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
Morrison, Toni. "James Baldwin: His Voice Remembered; Life in His Language." The New York Times, The New York Times, 1987. Web. .
Stanley, T. D. “Wheat from Chaff: Meta-analysis as Quantitative Literature Review.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 15, no. 3, American Economic Association, 2001. pp. 131–50. JSTOR, JSTOR. Web. .