“Flowerishes” and Burke’s “Methodology of the Pun”: Pariah Femininity and Women’s Roller Derby Names

• Dean Scheibel ^[1] ; Michele L. Hammers ^[1] ; Saeri Cho Dobson ^[1]
  1. [1] Loyola Marymount University

     Loyola Marymount University

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Southern communication journal, ISSN 1041-794X, Vol. 89, nº 5, 2024, págs. 280-292
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • We apply Burke’s “flowerish” and the feminist construct of “pariah femininity” to the symbolically rich and frequently bawdy realm of women’s roller derby names (RDNs). The “flowerish,” Burke’s geometric arrangement of epigrams, is a heuristic tool for exploring the ways in which RDNs enact “perspective by incongruity” as part of their performative challenges to the norms of hegemonic femininity. Our “flowerishes” are thematically curated collections of names that trade heavily on taboos surrounding the female body – particularly sex and death. Here, sex and death evoke Burke’s “combat myth” where eros and thanatos operate as opposing alternatives. In the puns that dominate RDNs, sex and death provide the dialectal impulses by which “pariah femininity” transcends the limitations of traditional femininity.