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This Research Brief discusses transformers—the core engine for most artificial intelligence applications. The brief situates transformer technology within the field of rhetoric and composition by surveying recent studies; highlights the innovative aspects of transformers; and, finally, thinks through (Majdik and Graham) the operations of transformers and generative AI through Miller’s theory of topoi, illustrating one way in which rhetoric and composition scholars and teachers can critically engage with generative AI in instruction and research.

This dissertation, “Facing Vernacular Video,” examines how the human face functions as rhetorical device for the substantiation of normative claims in the field of vernacular video. I approach the face not only as a biological given but as a legitimating trope involved in the adjudication of meaning and the configuration of individual subjectivities. Vernacular video designates a broad category of amateur and informal video production which might feature mundane home movies, diary-style rants, do-it yourself tutorials, or parodies, and has become co-extensive with what many conceive of as YouTube-style videos. With thousands of new videos being uploaded every hour to YouTube alone, vernacular video comprises a significant mode of societal production and consumption and represents a fecund ground for investigating the processes by which conceptions of face are rhetorically defined, normalized, and deployed for persuasive purposes. Consequently, the videos I have selected for examination are deeply inflected by rhetorics of identity, and include discourses on celebrity fandom, Asian-American representation, and international human rights. My introductory chapter establishes the historical and theoretical framework with which I approach the face in vernacular video. I examine the legacy of the face and systems of physiognomy in rhetorical theory in order to establish its function as a means to evidence the internal characteristics and social status of a rhetor, thus enhancing or inhibiting his or her persuasiveness. I argue that the tacit assumption that the face in general can and does manifest these markers of subjectivity and social positioning constitutes an ontological pretense that naturalizes the meaning-making properties of the face while eliding its rhetorical constructedness. Chapter 1 analyzes the media spectacle of Chris Brown’s assault on pop superstar Rihanna, tracing vernacular video refractions of the infamous TMZ.com photograph documenting Rihanna’s battered face to Brown’s much lampooned YouTube apology. Chapter 2 considers how presentations of face in vernacular video contribute to the racialization of Asian-Americans. This racialization is foregrounded by the genetic morphology of the “Asian” face, which becomes rhetorically coded as “yellow.” This “yellow face,” I argue, conceptualizes Asian-Americans as integrable to American society and imminently foreign, rendering these faces as transnational in their rhetorical deployments. Chapter 3 considers how the faces of “foreign” or non-Western women and children are coded as vulnerable in the rhetoric of human rights advocacy videos. Finally, my Conclusion proposes the principle of digital compositing as a heuristic to study the digitized face and guide production vernacular video within the rhetoric, composition, and digital media classroom.