Committee Chair

Jones, Rebecca E.

Committee Member

Hunter, Rik; Palmer, Heather

Department

Dept. of English

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to re-contextualize the genre of natural history writing along with rhetorical theory to delineate an argument for examining the rhetoric of natural history as a method for exploring the spatial, symbolic, and ecological relationships between collected specimens and their cultural, historical, and political moments in the greater canon of knowledge of the natural world. I am using a history of science approach to conduct interdisciplinary research of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century natural history as an early form of science writing in order to better understand how science is made and the conditions under which facts are constructed. By examining the rhetoric of the artificial systems created by naturalists to name and categorize nature, I will include a brief look at the ontology of racial identity in the North American South as a consequence of the application of these artificial systems to social theory.

Degree

M. A.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts.

Date

12-2020

Subject

Natural history in literature; Rhetoric; Science in literature

Name

Gosse, Philip Henry, 1810-1888. Letters from Alabama -- Criticism and interpretation

Keyword

History of Rhetoric; History of Science: Natural History; Rhetoric

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

v, 73 leaves

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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