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History of Rhetoric
Fall 2020 | Dr. Rebekah Shultz Colby
In the final paper for this course, I analyzed the connections between the rhetorical expression of Signifyin(g) and the potentially early uses of it in the civil rights era, as told by Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th. This article was particularly fun to work on because it made me engage with a relatively new (-ly named and studied) rhetorical strategy and apply it to a more easily recognized work.
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Signifyin(g): A Rhetorical Analysis Through the Lens of 13th

Photo and poem from telfair.org. The Signifying Monkey often appears in African Folklore and plays a key part in Signifyin(g) scholarship.
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