From Dilemma to Decision: Rhetorical Positionality as a Framework for Designing a Doctoral Dissertation Topic
Presentation Room
Borderlands Digital Humanities Center (BDHC), Library Room 201
Presentation Type
Plenary Session
Start Date
24-4-2026 12:45 PM
End Date
24-4-2026 2:00 PM
Abstract
Finding a dissertation topic for doctoral students in liberal arts education is one of the most difficult and defining moments of their academic journey. In my experience and observation, most graduate students struggle to identify a research topic that is both intellectually meaningful and aligns with their personal and scholarly commitments. To address this challenge, in this presentation, I propose rhetorical positionality as a framework for designing and formulating a doctoral research topic. To develop this framework, I draw on theoretical and methodological insights of the rhetorical situation as discussed by Scott Consigny, Richard Vaz, and Lloyd Bitzer, as well as counterstory as theorized by Aja Martinez. After discussing various aspects of the framework, I argue that rhetorical positionality encourages graduate students to critically reflect on their personal, social, cultural, linguistic, institutional, and disciplinary locations and to consider how these positions can inform the questions they ask and the knowledge they produce. Then, inviting the conference participants to discuss the critical self-inquiry model, I demonstrate how graduate student researchers can analyze their experiences, social locations, and intellectual motivations to generate research topics that matter both personally, socially, and academically by mapping possible constraints, opportunities, and ethical responsibilities involved in knowledge production before embarking on the dissertation journey. Hence, my presentation provides a practical pathway for graduate students to transform their dissertation dilemma into a doable research agenda and to build scholarship that is reflective, responsible, and community-engaged. Works Cited Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric [University Park, Pa], vol. 1, no. 1, 1968, pp. 1–14. Consigny, Scott. “Rhetoric and Its Situations.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 7, no. 3, 1974, pp. 175–86. Martinez, Aja Y. Counterstory : The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory. Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2020. Vatz, Richard E. “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 6, no. 3, 1973, pp. 154–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40236848.
From Dilemma to Decision: Rhetorical Positionality as a Framework for Designing a Doctoral Dissertation Topic
Borderlands Digital Humanities Center (BDHC), Library Room 201
Finding a dissertation topic for doctoral students in liberal arts education is one of the most difficult and defining moments of their academic journey. In my experience and observation, most graduate students struggle to identify a research topic that is both intellectually meaningful and aligns with their personal and scholarly commitments. To address this challenge, in this presentation, I propose rhetorical positionality as a framework for designing and formulating a doctoral research topic. To develop this framework, I draw on theoretical and methodological insights of the rhetorical situation as discussed by Scott Consigny, Richard Vaz, and Lloyd Bitzer, as well as counterstory as theorized by Aja Martinez. After discussing various aspects of the framework, I argue that rhetorical positionality encourages graduate students to critically reflect on their personal, social, cultural, linguistic, institutional, and disciplinary locations and to consider how these positions can inform the questions they ask and the knowledge they produce. Then, inviting the conference participants to discuss the critical self-inquiry model, I demonstrate how graduate student researchers can analyze their experiences, social locations, and intellectual motivations to generate research topics that matter both personally, socially, and academically by mapping possible constraints, opportunities, and ethical responsibilities involved in knowledge production before embarking on the dissertation journey. Hence, my presentation provides a practical pathway for graduate students to transform their dissertation dilemma into a doable research agenda and to build scholarship that is reflective, responsible, and community-engaged. Works Cited Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric [University Park, Pa], vol. 1, no. 1, 1968, pp. 1–14. Consigny, Scott. “Rhetoric and Its Situations.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 7, no. 3, 1974, pp. 175–86. Martinez, Aja Y. Counterstory : The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory. Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2020. Vatz, Richard E. “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 6, no. 3, 1973, pp. 154–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40236848.
Comments
Panel 2: Doctoral Students: Discerning Participation and Dissertation Topics and Methodologies