Graduate Studies
First Advisor
Rachael W. Shah
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Committee Members
David Wishart, Stacey Waite, Tom Lynch
Department
English
Date of this Version
8-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Citation
A dissertation presented to the Graduate College of the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Major: English (Composition and Rhetoric)
Under the supervision of Professor Rachael W. Shah
Lincoln, Nebraska, August 2025
Abstract
Encounters with more-than-human identities are transformative moments that stand to affect dispositional and bodily change in individuals. From close brushes with wild animals in National Parks to everyday interactions with local ecologies, encounters invite us to feel and think differently about the nature of our realities. In Rhetorics of Encounter: Toward a Biocentric Theory of Discourse, I draw from interdisciplinary perspectives to disrupt the idea of rhetoric as a representational medium, arguing that rhetoric occurs not just through textual exchanges of words and symbols, but through embodied moments of contact with other responsive beings. Invoking George Kennedy’s theory of rhetoric as persuasive energy and fusing it with Gilles Deleuze’s formulation of the encounter as an epistemological disturbance, I make the case for re-thinking the encounter as a disruptive event that acts on audiences by supplying them with new imaginative possibilities. Tracing the history and etymology of the word “encounter,” I consider how the term might orient us toward different ways of conceptualizing the discourse-environment relationship. How do ideas of “invention” and “research” change, for instance, when viewed through the lens of the encounter? To what extent might the encounter support an environmentally-conscious approach to writing instruction? Rhetorics of Encounter: Toward a Biocentric Theory of Discourse invites readers to consider the rich entanglements connecting our literate lives to our ecological realities.
Advisor: Rachael W. Shah
Recommended Citation
Whitaker, Matthew D., "Rhetorics of Encounter: Toward a Biocentric Theory of Discourse" (2025). Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–. 362.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissunl/362
Included in
Contemplative Education Commons, Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, Human Ecology Commons, Humane Education Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Sustainability Commons
Comments
Copyright 2025, Matthew D. Whitaker. Used by permission