Defense Date

3-31-2010

Graduation Date

Spring 2010

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Janie Harden Fritz

Committee Member

Kathleen Glenister Roberts

Committee Member

Ronald C. Arnett

Keywords

interracial, friendship

Abstract

An increasingly multicultural society presents both challenges and opportunities to the public sphere. These challenges are frequently answered with calls for diversity and inclusion. However, this project suggests that interracial friendship overcomes the inherent limitations of diversity and inclusion and is therefore a more desirable alternative with which to enter the public sphere. This project explores the phenomenon of friendship and the particular notion that interracial friendship is critical to developing and disciplining our public hearts.

While long standing philosophical conceptions and more recent social science perspective of friendship are examined, friendship is conceptualized here using Emerson's notion of "truth" and "tenderness."

Format

PDF

Language

English

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