Date of Award
6-27-2025
Date Published
August 2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition
Advisor(s)
Krista Kennedy
Subject Categories
Arts and Humanities | Rhetoric and Composition
Abstract
This dissertation rhetorically analyzes appeals to material ethos in The Craftsman and Make: magazines in order to identify two historical considerations of craftwork and craftsperson identities. I argue that these case studies represent two approaches towards craft at historical moments when automation and industrialization were disrupting what it meant to be a craftsperson or maker. While ethos has traditionally been thought of as a rhetorical relationship among rhetors and audiences, within these magazines ethos is treated as a relationship between craftspeople and nonhuman materials. Drawing upon posthuman and new materialist feminist theorists, I consider how writing and rhetoric scholars might better understand digital writing at our own present historical moment in ways that account for a materialist ethos as well. Given that AI and LLMs are changing what it means to be a writer, rhetor, and composer, this dissertation reconsiders how we approach the craft of writing from a materialist rhetoric perspective.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Markins, Jason, "Beyond the Head and the Hand: A Rhetorical Analysis of Material Ethos in The Craftsman (1901-1905) and Make: (2005-2010) Magazines." (2025). Dissertations - ALL. 2161.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/2161
