Cultural Play at the Crazy Horse Colossus: Narrative

This thesis explores the Crazy Horse Memorial orientation film and its rhetorical claim to represent Lakota values in the rhetorically contested Black Hills of South Dakota. Walter Fisher’s concept of narrative rationality is used to analyze the informal logic of the memorial film narrative. The Cra...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cornwell, Thomas M
Format: Others
Published: Digital Archive @ GSU 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/communication_theses/64
http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=communication_theses
Description
Summary:This thesis explores the Crazy Horse Memorial orientation film and its rhetorical claim to represent Lakota values in the rhetorically contested Black Hills of South Dakota. Walter Fisher’s concept of narrative rationality is used to analyze the informal logic of the memorial film narrative. The Crazy Horse Memorial is seen as a response to Mt. Rushmore’s colonialist legacy. Analysis shows that the Crazy Horse Memorial actually has much in common with Rushmore’s legacy of Euro-American colonialism. This thesis discusses the effects of this redefinition of Lakota cultural values on the rhetorical sphere of the contested Black Hills.