McNair Scholar: Discovering Research, Gorgias, and Rhetoric
I applied to the McNair program at LSU because of my determination to learn to do independent research to pursue graduate study, but I never imagined what an exciting journey it would be for me as a scholar or how it would fuel my love for rhetoric.
I discovered my project in the middle of a summer workshop. At the time, my mentors and I decided that I would undertake a literature review to survey different rhetorical theories before planning a project. The workshop, however, offered an opportunity to develop a research project, so I started looking closely at Gorgias's Encomium of Helen. I quickly became immersed in the research surrounding this admittedly short but fascinating piece on the complexities of persuasion; more than that, I found that the research did not answer a huge question I had about the piece: How could persuasion be both a violent force acting against Helen's will and a pleasing act, like magic and beguile the soul? When I presented my research for my workshop, I realized I had fallen in love with Gorgias, and I wanted to see this project through.
Thus, I wrote "The Violence and Pleasure of Persuasion in Gorgias's Encomium of Helen" and merged my passion for rhetoric with my interest in classical studies to perform a close reading of Gorgias's speech on the nature of persuasion. Through Gorgias's discussion of persuasion and the audience-speaker relationship between Helen and Paris in the speech as well as Plato and Aristotle's theories on pleasure, I examined Gorgias's Encomium of Helen for the violence and pleasure of persuasion and how these opposing forces work together to persuade the audience and how this speaker-audience relationship can be dangerous, for the audience and the speaker.
At the end of the summer, I composed an 18-page paper and gave a poster presentation. When I returned from my study abroad in Spring 2015, I presented this paper at the Philosophy Salon at LSU, the McNair conference in Maryland, and at an event as part of Women's History Month at LSU. After presenting my work to different audiences, hearing questions, and receiving feedback, I know I want to continue conducting research.
I discovered my project in the middle of a summer workshop. At the time, my mentors and I decided that I would undertake a literature review to survey different rhetorical theories before planning a project. The workshop, however, offered an opportunity to develop a research project, so I started looking closely at Gorgias's Encomium of Helen. I quickly became immersed in the research surrounding this admittedly short but fascinating piece on the complexities of persuasion; more than that, I found that the research did not answer a huge question I had about the piece: How could persuasion be both a violent force acting against Helen's will and a pleasing act, like magic and beguile the soul? When I presented my research for my workshop, I realized I had fallen in love with Gorgias, and I wanted to see this project through.
Thus, I wrote "The Violence and Pleasure of Persuasion in Gorgias's Encomium of Helen" and merged my passion for rhetoric with my interest in classical studies to perform a close reading of Gorgias's speech on the nature of persuasion. Through Gorgias's discussion of persuasion and the audience-speaker relationship between Helen and Paris in the speech as well as Plato and Aristotle's theories on pleasure, I examined Gorgias's Encomium of Helen for the violence and pleasure of persuasion and how these opposing forces work together to persuade the audience and how this speaker-audience relationship can be dangerous, for the audience and the speaker.
At the end of the summer, I composed an 18-page paper and gave a poster presentation. When I returned from my study abroad in Spring 2015, I presented this paper at the Philosophy Salon at LSU, the McNair conference in Maryland, and at an event as part of Women's History Month at LSU. After presenting my work to different audiences, hearing questions, and receiving feedback, I know I want to continue conducting research.