Deep in the heart of Texas: nostalgia's ethos in public discourse

Prince, Kalyn

Deep in the heart of Texas: nostalgia's ethos in public discourse

dc.contributor.advisor	Mountford, Roxanne
dc.contributor.author	Prince, Kalyn
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Kurlinkus, William
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Tarabochia, Sandra
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Rios, Gabriela
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Edy, Jill
dc.date.accessioned	2022-05-04T17:12:24Z
dc.date.available	2022-05-04T17:12:24Z
dc.date.issued	2022-05
dc.date.manuscript	2022-04
dc.description.abstract	This project argues that nostalgia operates rhetorically as an argument of ethos and that its function within public arguments provides the field of rhetoric an opportunity to reimagine how ethos is produced within political discourse. To analyze the relationship between nostalgia, argumentation, ethos, and home, this project analyzes my own home—Texas. I focus on three Texan Democrats—Beto O’Rourke, Ann Richards, and Julián Castro—and detail what each figure reveals about nostalgia’s relationship to ethos. In my chapter on Beto O’Rourke, I argue that O’Rourke becomes authentic for Texans by embracing a nostalgic vision of the “real Texan” in his Senate campaign. The analysis examines how authenticity is a concept deeply rooted in nostalgia and can function as ethos when such a nostalgic authenticity proves a rhetor to be an occupant of a specific place—the home—that highlights a group’s values. My case study of Governor Ann Richards pairs feminist analysis and archival methods to argue that her ethos in Texas was produced via a nostalgic (re)construction of her body as a Texan “good ol’ boy” based on her speaking style and infamous Southern wit. In perhaps my most methodologically complex chapter, I employ spatial criticism and ethnographic research to examine Julián Castro’s work in San Antonio, reading San Antonio’s downtown as a text that produces its ethos through a nostalgic retelling of its Latinx history and traditions—a retelling that creates spaces for stories that expand its borders and look to an ideal future by reimagining an ideal past. If nostalgia as ethos transforms the field’s understanding of political discourse, it should also transform our methodological approaches to such discourse. Thus, following each case study I offer an interchapter that further explicates the research methods used in the previous chapter. In doing so, I comment on how nostalgia gives back to and transforms methods of analysis for public discourse. By blending and creating rhetorical theory, analysis, and methods throughout my dissertation, I construct what I call a critical nostalgia. Critical nostalgia suggests that understanding nostalgia as ethos can work to highlight dominant and colonial ideologies that undergird visions of home in many political arguments. Critical nostalgia demonstrates how using nostalgia as a critical rhetorical tool can participate in unsettling privileges and (re)building homes that stand in defiance of colonial discourse. Moving beyond Texas politics to implications for the field of rhetoric, I argue that utilizing a critical nostalgia affords us—as scholars and citizens—the opportunity to better respond to, craft, and embody arguments that honor the home we aspire to have.	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/11244/335497
dc.language	en_US	en_US
dc.subject	nostalgia	en_US
dc.subject	ethos	en_US
dc.subject	rhetorical criticism and research methods	en_US
dc.subject	political discourse / Texan politics	en_US
dc.thesis.degree	Ph.D.	en_US
dc.title	Deep in the heart of Texas: nostalgia's ethos in public discourse	en_US
ou.group	Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences::Department of English	en_US