Date of Award
5-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design
Committee Chair/Advisor
Cameron Bushnell
Committee Member
Abel Bartley
Committee Member
Nic Brown
Committee Member
Lauren Crosby
Abstract
The Sound of Young America/The Soul of Young America: A Sonic Rhetoric Inquiry into 1965 and the Music Defining a Generation In Crisis builds a case for sonic rhetoric theory that sees sonic rhetoric move outside of pedagogy, becoming a valuable tool for rhetorical analysis outside the classroom. To this end, The Sound of Young America/The Soul of Young America employs sonic rhetoric concepts and methodology grounded in cultural rhetorics, social history, and sociomusicology to inquire into the cultural and social relevancy of rock music, specifically to this project, in 1965. Sonic rhetoric sees sound and music as underexplored, but socially and culturally significant, sites to probe how individuals produce, disseminate, and process meaning without the limitations and obstacles created by language. Sound and music by-passes language to tap into meaning that is inaccessible through words alone such as embodied or emotional meaning.
Rock music studies traditionally have focused on the contributions of the musicians and groups that comprise its cannon who are typically White men. However, recent scholars have endeavored to decentralize the role of the White male auteur in rock music, uplifting the contributions of historically marginalized folks. Through sonic rhetoric, this dissertation adds to the necessary work being done to recover rock music from decades of White-centric mythologizing and confront the “White sonic gaze” that has pervaded American cultural attitudes and social histories regarding popular music.
1965 serves as a point of genesis for rock music, as well as a junction between the long fifties and the Counterculture of the late sixties to follow. While other years of that decade have received more scholarly and lay attention, 1965 is the cultural-political-social junction of not only the sixties, but as this dissertation argues, the twentieth century at large. Therefore, 1965 provides an excellent site to jointly demonstrate sonic rhetoric theory in-action, as well as to use that theory to inquire into a significant point of cultural, political, and social crisis in America. To achieve these objectives, The Sound of Young America/The Soul of Young America probes rock music of ‘65, placing that music in its social-rhetorical context.
Recommended Citation
Dyche, Jessica, "The Sound of Young America/the Soul of Young America: A Sonic Rhetoric Inquiry Into 1965 and the Music Defining a Generation in Crisis" (2025). All Dissertations. 3922.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/3922
Author ORCID Identifier
0009-0007-9746-8708
Included in
African American Studies Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, Musicology Commons, Other Music Commons, Other Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Rhetoric Commons, Social History Commons, United States History Commons