Objects That Endure: The Epideictic Rhetoric of Seasonal Domesticity
For many, the concept of home is synonymous with safety and continuity; this security is tied to both the idea of home and its materiality. This can be seen by various cultural preoccupations with amassing possessions. In the chapter entitled “Home as Stage” found in Household Gods: The British and Their Possessions, historian Deborah Cohen notes that possessions were “endowed with moral and artistic qualities” to the Victorian and subsequently “made the man.” By analyzing the history of objects, their seasonal placements, and ability to endure through epideictic means, I hope to uncover how objects, within domestic spaces, both reflect and become part of cultural value-based narratives writ large. Although this dissertation leans heavily into visual analysis and the histories of objects and their social contexts, the focus of this project is to examine how objects influence American culture by acting rhetorically. Utilizing both ancient and modern conceptions of epideictic rhetoric, I will unpack how tastemakers, and those in privileged social positions, harness domestic objects to advance their own agendas and impart values. I begin this work by reimagining the human centered rhetoric that dominated from the classical period until fairly recently; rather than solely analyzing speech, I expand rhetoric’s boundaries to include performative acts and visual forms of communication. My work builds upon traditional conceptions of epideictic (ceremonial rhetoric) and encomium (rhetorics of praise) by focusing on communicative acts that embody not only “‘by a constellation of forms,’ but by a constellation of purposes: preservation, education, celebration, and aesthetic creation.” These constellations allow narratives privileging dominant groups and ideologies to hold disproportionate space in public consciousness. By moving beyond the confines of encomium and epideictic as speech associated with praise and blame, I present the possibility that objects embody cultural values and operate in their own right through assemblages of enchantment. My focus on “intra-actions” between objects and audiences as small rhetorical events serves to lead to a rich discuss of how and why certain domestic objects have come to endure in American consciousness. This dissertation seeks to answer the following research question: How can a rhetorical analysis of domestic objects inform an understanding of them as epideictic texts with the ability to shape what it means to be a certain type of American?
Epideictic, Rhetoric, Seasonal domesticity, Visual communication, History, Domesticity
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