This dissertation asserts that marginalized communities that are physically or metaphorically silenced by a dominant faction adapt the materials they have at hand to create alternate discourses. The specific example utilized is the adaptation of domestic visual craft into sociopolitical rhetorics by women in the United States. Situated predominantly in domestic textile production and growing from the purely American tradition of patchwork quilting, this dissertation builds from quilt making to investigate selected historically-rooted locations of alternate rhetorics. Subsequent chapters include analyses of The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago as Second Wave feminist personal and community narrative, Third Wave feminism and craftivism, and cancer journals as visual autobiography.

This project also introduces the term Philomela Syndrome signifying those peoples who have been physically or metaphorically silenced by a dominant group in society, utilizing the terms feminized and masculinized to denote disempowered and empowered groups. Further, this text establishes Reclamation Theory as the process by which a marginalized group discards an outward demarcation of difference to promote equality and later may reclaim it when a modicum of equality is established so as to celebrate diversity.

Ultimately, these considerations of alternate discourses lead to a discussion of visual pedagogies designed for undergraduates enrolled in general education English Studies courses. These alternate pedagogies are intended to undermine a real or perceived sense of silencing that non-English majors experience in required composition and literature classes by recognizing their diverse knowledges as participants in a visual media society and attempt to provided concrete explanations and examples for the ambiguous nature of writing and literary instruction. These visual pedagogies can lead to a greater level of student comprehension and retention, as well as eradicating some of the feelings of frustration that students may have with these courses while promoting a deeper stage of critical thinking and analysis.