Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Communication

Committee Chair

Marina Levina

Committee Member

Andre Johnson

Committee Member

Brian Kwoba

Committee Member

David Stephens

Abstract

ABSTRACT The following dissertation explores the construction of Black masculinity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) through a rhetorical analysis of three central figures: Sam Wilson, Black Panther (both T’Challa and Shuri) , and Luke Cage. Drawing from theoretical frameworks including Jackson’s (2006) concept of scripting, Griaule’s (1978) levels of the word, Gates’s (2018) theory of the double negative, and rhetorical fractals (Bloomfield & Chamblee, 2023), this project examines how Black masculinity is shaped through place, discourse, and relationships across rural, militarized, imagined, metaphysical, and urban environments. Each chapter foregrounds a distinct geography to investigate how the spatial, cultural, and institutional context influences the performance, vulnerability, and relational dimensions of Black masculinity. Sam Wilson’s character is analyzed through the lens of rural Louisiana and U.S. military institutions, with attention to systemic surveillance and inherited patriotic expectations. His masculinity is shaped by the burdens of emotional labor, care work, and national trauma, positioning him as both a protector and a witness to American contradictions. The Black Panther chapter focuses on T’Challa and Shuri, whose narratives unfold in the imagined and metaphysical spaces of Wakanda and the ancestral plane. Here, masculinity is negotiated through rituals of grief, cultural memory, and sovereign responsibility, offering a redefinition rooted in both lineage and innovation. Luke Cage’s masculinity emerges in Harlem a space of urban memory, community resilience, and generational trauma. His identity is shaped by neighborhood loyalties, Black public memory, and the tension between being both a weapon and a witness. Across these sites, Black masculinity is revealed as fluid, adaptive, and deeply contextual negotiated through rhetorical tensions between strength and softness, visibility and vulnerability, tradition and transformation. Furthermore, this dissertation argues that the MCU does not simply expand representations of masculinity but actively reimagines them. Characters such as Sam, T’Challa, Shuri, and Luke embody masculine identities that are emotionally intelligent, dialogic, and culturally grounded. Thus, this dissertation contributes to rhetorical studies, Black media studies, and masculinity studies concluding as well as proposing Afroterroir as a place-based, discourse-centered framework for understanding how Black masculinity is both scripted and disrupted in contemporary media. Ultimately, it contends that Black masculinity in the MCU is not a fixed archetype, but a dynamic site of cultural meaning always shaped by place, memory, relationships, and resistance.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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