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The non-'issued' voice heard in whispers: the rhetorical practices of army wives in text and cyberspace
Serrano, Kristi Beth Schwertfeger
Serrano, Kristi Beth Schwertfeger
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[Fort Worth, Tex.] : Texas Christian University,
Date
2011
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Abstract
I investigate Army wives as rhetorical educators in the military's domestic sphere, correcting myopic representations of Army wives as either stoic or teary-eyed. Army wives teach each other through informal education, which I call "parlor pedagogy." While scholars traditionally examine soldiers, scholarship on wives remains limited. Examining the textual, the visual, and the digital communications of Army wives found in handbooks and online communities, my project broadens the field's understanding of who can be a rhetor, asking them to consider ordinary women like Army wives. By studying Army wife parlor pedagogy, I reveal that ordinary women like Army wives, perceived as having no power, can create and wield forms of social and political power.^In Chapter 1, I introduce Army wives, situating them within academia, discussing how the discipline of women's rhetoric re-examine these women as significant subjects--whereas Military history and Anthropology study wives' in relationship to service members and the Armed Forces. In Chapter 2, I explore the rise of women's education, tracing the influence of politics, religion, and literature. I explain the efficacy of women's handbooks as social-political power using Foucault's theories of discipline and punishment. In Chapter 3, I demonstrate how conduct literature, as wifely handbooks, have become part of Army culture. I use two popular military wife handbooks to show how senior wives rhetorically educate new wives on the Army and its expectations for ideal Army wives. In Chapter 4, I examine how Army wives enact parlor pedagogy visually on Army wife web sites and chat rooms, constructing a personal forum for wifely enculturation.^In Chapter 5, I address how Army wife textual/linguistic exchanges, though peer-based, often reinforce Army hierarchies and traditional wifely expectations. Yet, the dialog also offers wives' a means for an activist form of parlor pedagogy to emerge. In Chapter 6, I conclude that parlor pedagogy establishes a traditional means by which Army wives acquire social agency through the military's hierarchy. Wives in authority can produce either a liberating or restrictive education for new/incoming wives. As such, Army wives possess the power to resist conventions using traditional means available to them.
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Subject
Subject(s)
United States. Army Military life.
Army spouses United States Conduct of life.
Army spouses United States Attitudes.
Internet Social aspects.
Wives Education United States.
Wives Effect of husband's employment on United States.
Army spouses United States Conduct of life.
Army spouses United States Attitudes.
Internet Social aspects.
Wives Education United States.
Wives Effect of husband's employment on United States.
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Dissertation
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English