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Textualization of Pat Tillman: Understanding the Relationships Between Person, Discourse, and Ideology

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Textualization of Pat Tillman: Understanding the Relationships Between Person, Discourse, and Ideology Abstract Title of dissertation: TEXTUALIZATION OF PAT TILLMAN: UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PERSON, DISCOURSE, AND IDEOLOGY Arthur W. Herbig, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Robert N. Gaines Department of Communication This project is a critical examination of the ways in which the life and death of Pat Tillman were shaped into a discursive Pat Tillman. This is not a project that examines the life led by the person Pat Tillman. The discursive Pat Tillman can be found in the pages of magazines, on television, invoked by politicians, and even memorialized in song. It is Pat Tillman, the discursive creation, that is my focus. In this project I take for granted that Pat Tillman only existed in places like the pages of books or on film. What is not lost on me and should not be lost on the reader of this project is my own participation in this process. With this project I have entered into the very discourses that I seek to critique. This is an analysis of the existence of a Pat Tillman that many people still know and the ideas that help shape how that existence is communicated. My critique focuses on the existence of a discursive Pat Tillman as a rhetorical phenomenon, drawing upon scholarship that can inform an understanding of how the life of Pat Tillman became the material for public discourse. My analysis interconnects Michel Foucault’s (1972) work on knowledge and discourse with Michael Calvin McGee (1990) referred to as rhetorical fragments, in order to provide a foundation for understanding the discursive existence of Pat Tillman. Using how discourse producer connected various facts, stories, and images with conceptions of heroism, masculinity, and the American Dream, I reveal how the life and death of Pat Tillman was used as the material to represent political and cultural positions that exist external to that life. Through an analysis of the various news reports, books, documentaries, blogs, and other mediated texts that were produced in response to the life and death of Pat Tillman, this study presents a clearer picture of what is meant by “fragmentation” in critical analysis. THE TEXTUALIZATION OF PAT TILLMAN: UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PERSON, DISCOURSE, AND IDEOLOGY by Arthur W. Herbig Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 Advisory Committee Dr. Robert N. Gaines, Chair Dr. James F. Klumpp Dr. Kristy Maddux Dr. Nancy L. Struna Dr. Leah Waks Preface The impetus for this project comes from a very personal place. My father once told me that nothing makes your own mortality more apparent than the death of your contemporaries. No single event in my life has made those words ring truer than the death of my childhood friend Pat Tillman. My relationship with Pat Tillman dates back to a soccer team I played on when I was just three years old. From there, Pat Tillman became a person I knew as a friend, a teammate, and at times a rival (among other things). However, as is the case with many childhood relationships, Pat Tillman and I took different paths. Like most Americans, I experienced his decision to serve in the Army and his subsequent death through its public mediation. In the time since his death, I have found myself in a liminal space having two different types of experience. On one hand, there were memories of a person called Tilly, PT, or (often immediately after some childhood indiscretion) Patrick. That person comes up in conversations with my mother or while reminiscing with a friend about days that I thought I had long since forgotten. On the other hand, there are biographies, television specials, and documentaries that have created a Pat Tillman foreign to me. I use italics to distinguish the constructed Pat Tillman from the Pat Tillman I knew because Pat Tillman is not so much a person as a product of public discourse. Pat Tillman is based on the life led by Pat Tillman, but the person I knew is not Pat Tillman and Pat Tillman is not the person that I knew. My instincts about this Pat Tillman were confirmed by my discussions with family and friends. They were particularly validated by my conversations with Pat Tillman’s mother, Mary (or Dannie as my mother calls her, but always Mrs. Tillman to me), and his brother, Kevin. As we talked, I began to find myself looking for ways to ii discuss the distinction between the person that I had admired, feared, loathed, and respected at different points throughout my childhood and the vaunted figure that was all around me. To be certain, Pat Tillman was never perfect, but he was someone that I could always count on even when we did not see eye to eye. He was a person of great strength and substance that has given way to an existence without any substance at all. Both Mrs. Tillman and Kevin discussed a similar feeling, a sense that these people talking about Pat did not really “know” the person that had been a part of our lives. It was with this in mind that I set out to study the existence of Pat Tillman. Drawing upon my training as a rhetorical critic, I began to see Pat Tillman as a rhetorical creation. It is safe to say that the exigence of this project was a personal necessity, but I believe that the product is of public benefit. Out of my desire to understand my experience came the opportunity to talk about the public existence of public figures. This is by no means a study of celebrity. That work is a vast and important field that has contributed to my examination, but this criticism is about something distinct from a person. Just as discussions of George Washington or Babe Ruth would seem trivialized by simply labeling them as a celebrity, Pat Tillman grew to be something different. While Pat Tillman may never achieve the level of acclaim of those figures, what puts him in the same discussion is that since their passing they have spurred investigations and mythologies that often have very little to do with the life of a person. The discourses that have been produced have more to do with how that life can speak to the culture that person left behind. In fact, George Washington, Babe Ruth, and Pat Tillman still exist in contemporary U.S. culture despite the fact that the people they represent have died. So, instead of discussing Pat Tillman as a celebrity, I have chosen to focus on Pat Tillman as iii a product. Pat Tillman is a creation of the many journalists, politicians, pundits, celebrities, and various other public figures who chose to employ the life of Pat Tillman as means to comment on U.S. culture. To analyze the rhetorical existence of Pat Tillman, I have drawn upon scholarship that rang true with my experience of how the life of Pat Tillman became the material for public discourse. Building from Michel Foucault’s (1972) work on knowledge and discourse, the approach to criticism I have employed in this project is consistent with my experience of Pat Tillman. It also offers some insight into how Foucault’s discursive approach can provide a basis for understanding the distinction between a person and a characterization. By focusing on what Michael Calvin McGee (1990) referred to as rhetorical fragments, I have shown that the building blocks of Pat Tillman were used to link the life of Pat Tillman to political and cultural beliefs that exist external to that life. Their works formed the basis for my analysis. I go into greater detail about how these and other works inspired my analysis in my introduction, but here it suffices to say that this is not a project that examines the life led by the person Pat Tillman. Pat Tillman can be found in the pages of magazines (Lacayo 2004; Smith 2004), on television (Discovery Times 2007), invoked by politicians (McCain 2004e), and even memorialized in song (Pearl Jam 2006; Madden 2006). It is Pat Tillman, the discursive creation, I examine. In this project I take for granted that Pat Tillman only existed in places like the pages of books or on film. What is not lost on me and should not be lost on the reader of this project is my own participation in this process. With this project I have entered into the very discourses that I seek to iv discuss. This is an analysis of the existence of a Pat Tillman that many people still know and the ideas that help shape how that existence is communicated. v Dedication This project is dedicated to all who serve, either in the military, in the community, or at home. vi Acknowledgements Any time you embark upon a project of this nature, there are bound to be numerous people that provided support along the way. This project is no different. I owe a debt of gratitude to a great number of people, not all of which I will mention here. However, it needs to be said upfront that my deepest and sincerest thanks go out to all the people that helped make the completion of this project possible. To begin with, I would like to thank my wife. I began this project a single man, and never would have thought that someone would have the patience and understanding to marry me during this tumultuous period in my life. She did, and I am forever in her debt.
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