Marita Gronnvoll

Believing in both genetic determinism and behavioral action: a materialist framework and implications

A disparity exists between studies reporting that genetics discourse produces deterministic or fatalistic responses and studies reporting that the majority of laypeople do not hold or adopt genetically deterministic views. This article reports data from an interview study (n = 50), and an interpretation of those data grounded in materialist understandings of discourse, that explains at least part of the disparity. The article employs a detailed reading of an illustrative transcript embedded in a quantitative content analysis to suggest that laypeople have incorporated two sets of public discourses—one that describes genetic causation and another that describes behavioral causation. These different discourse tracks are presumed to be encoded in different sets of neural networks in people’s minds. Consequently, each track can be articulated upon proper cueing, but the tracks are not related to each other to produce a discourse for speaking about gene—behavior interactions. Implications for the effects of this mode of instantiation of discourse in human individuals with regard to genes and behavior are discussed, as well as implications for message design.

From Viruses to Russian Roulette to Dance: A Rhetorical Critique and Creation of Genetic Metaphors

This article critiques and creates metaphoric genetic rhetoric by examining metaphors for genes used by representatives of the lay American public. We assess these metaphors with a new rhetorical orientation that we developed by building onto work by Robert Ivie and social scientific qualitative studies of audiences. Specifically, our analysis reveals three themes of genetic metaphors, with the first two appearing most frequently: (1) genes as a disease or problem, (2) genes as fire or bomb, and (3) genes as gambling. We not only discuss the problems and untapped potential of these metaphors, but also we suggest metaphorically understanding genes interacting with the environment as a dance or a band. This article has implications for rhetorical criticism, science studies, and public health.

GENDER (IN)VISIBILITY AT ABU GHRAIB

This essay explores the gender discourse surrounding the women soldiers implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, and the gender silence surrounding their male counterparts. The analysis suggests that the women soldiers in the abuse case, particularly Lynndie England, are held to gendered standards, while the male soldiers are discussed in terms that are nongendered. Further, analysis of the widely disseminated photographs suggests that where the Iraqi male prisoners are excessively gendered and homosexualized, the male soldiers have their presumed heterosexuality preserved. Examination of the Abu Ghraib case suggests implications for rhetorical scholars interested in gender, as well as larger cultural implications regarding the policy debates that arose as a result of the case.

Bodies that Shatter: A Rhetoric of Exteriors, the Abject, and Female Suicide Bombers in the “War on Terrorism”

Pairing literature on constitutive rhetoric with Julia Kristevas work on the abject as a theoretical framework, we examine the rhetoric of U.S. media that report with alarm and dismay on the activities of female suicide bombers in the so-called war on terrorism. By examining the media-described actions of female suicide bombers as abject, and their acts as a type of “situated utterance,” we are able to trace the ways in which both are articulated by U.S. mass media with cultural tropes that constitute a particular identity or subjectivity of the American audience in which these discourses circulate. Audiences are invited to articulate the violence of these women with already existing cultural understandings of violent women and their bodies. Through these mediated discourses, the U.S. audience is invited to understand these actions as the insane acts of uncontained sociopaths, not as meaningful, although acutely violent, situated utterances.

A religious framework as a lens for understanding the intersection of genetics, health, and disease†

The primary goal of this study was to determine the extent to which religious frameworks inform lay public understandings of genes and disease. Contrary to existing research, there were minimal differences between racial groups. We did, however, observe two patterns in that data that are worthy of discussion. First, because participants were from the south, the finding that participants from both racial groups ascribe to a religious belief system to make sense of their lived experiences is not surprising. Rather, it appears to be reflective of the religious culture that is an integral part of the south and our identity as a nation. A second noteworthy finding is that while a significant number of participants believe that a relationship exists between health status, genes, and religious behaviors, they also recognize that positive health behaviors must also be adopted as a means for staving off disease. In some cases, however, there was a belief that health issues could dissolve or disappear as a result of certain religious behaviors such as prayer.

Review Essay: Material Rhetorics Meet Material Feminisms

Cara A. Finnegan, Editor Review Essay Material Rhetorics Meet Material Feminisms Marita Gronnvoll Barbara A. Biesecker and John Louis Lucaites (eds.), Rhetoric, Materiality, & Politics (New York: P...

Religion, Empire, and Torture: The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib (review)

fl ows and viscosities, its composition and recomposition. Given the immediate threats to civil liberties posed by those who would oppose freedom of expression by recourse to national security concerns, Finan’s efforts are timely, important, and may be forgiven for their occasional (and unproblematized) spirit of optimistic liberal humanism. The continuing threats posed by the reauthorization of the Patriot Act may also explain Finan’s decision to exclude free speech issues related to copyright. Nevertheless, From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act provides useful lessons on the history of free speech while teaching, by example, how to write about struggle for academic and activist audiences—suggesting, perhaps, a post-9/11 example of the organic intellectual.

Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-and-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture (review)

bombing as a way to win World Wars I and II, all of them are diligently quoted by Davis to achieve a compelling account whose relevance remains for us in the twenty-first century: the ways of warfare are not a science but an art. What worked or did not work in the past can offer only some degree of guidance to those who would wage war later—in Vietnam, Iraq, or elsewhere in the future. For confidence in any mode of making war is still subject—as Davis demonstrates well—to informed, authoritative, and totally objective judgment.