Tomorrow, Friday January 25, marks Wabash’s 8^th annual Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work.  There will be a record 86 presentations of student work at the Celebration, covering every academic area of study at the college.  Included among those oral and poster presentations will be five presentations of research developed in Rhetoric courses. 

At 1:30 in Detchon Hall 209, junior Rhetoric major Grant Gussman will present “What's Wrong with History? An Ideological Analysis of Miracle.”  Grant’s project, developed in Professor Todd McDorman’s Rhetoric of Sport course, raises questions of ideology and collective memory in an examination of rhetorical strategies employed in the 2004 Disney film, which chronicles the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team’s Gold Medal performance (“The Miracle on Ice”). Grant contends that in the film history was re-envisioned in order to advance an ideology of American superiority and to make the film more appealing to contemporary audiences.

At 2:40 in Detchon 220, senior Rhetoric major Jared Conaway will present his Senior Project, “The Ideology of Roger Goodell: Ensuring Great Football Players are Great Men.”  Jared’s project examines the rhetoric of National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell in reference to player conduct issues. Jared contends that in reaction to a well publicized rash of incidents involving player misconduct, Goodell has adopted a “law and order” ideology that stresses personal responsibility and citizenship, using this ideology as part of a corrective action strategy to reassure football fans of the moral value of the NFL as a source of family entertainment.

Three Rhetoric-themed presentations will be presented in Detchon 211 from 2:40 to 3:40. At 2:40, senior History major Richard Roomes will present “Ballot or the Bullet,” a rhetorical analysis of the famous Malcolm X speech.  In the project, which Richard developed in Public Speaking with Professor Jennifer Abbott, a contemporary perspective on the continued meaning of the speech for society, race, and politics is offered.

Following Roomes, English major Shayne Dube will present “Hip Hop: A Survival of the Secrecy Tradition in African American Expressive Culture,” a project he developed last spring in the African American Rhetoric and Expressive Culture course taught by Professors David Timmerman and Tim Lake.  In the project Shayne examines coded methods of communicating via music developed by African Americans in Antebellum America and considers how Hip Hop represents the survival of this tradition.  Then, at 3:20, Mathematics major Marquise Triplett will present “African American Social Dancing,” a project also developed in the Timmerman and Lake immersion course last spring. Marquise examines the role of dance in displays of personality and identity and in terms of its significance in African American social history.

The Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative work is scheduled from 1:00 to 4:20 in Detchon Hall.  All presentations are free and open to the public.