Last summer I took an amazing trip to the Penn State University Archives, as well as to the Drexel University Legacy Center, to find records of Dr. Helen Octavia Dickens, the first Black woman certified in Gynecology in the United States. Thanks to the fantastic archivists I worked with, boxes of materials were waiting for…
I’m thrilled that Christa Teston’s new book, Doing Dignity: Ethical Praxis and the Politics of Care, is now out with the Johns Hopkins University Press book series in Health Communication! Not only does this gorgeous book have an absolutely striking cover, but the insight Teston offers about the idea of dignity in the present moment,…
The Department of Communication at the University of Utah was very lucky to host the Health & Environmental Justice in Latina/o/x Communities Colloquium this past Friday. The effort was led by the stupendous Drs. Leandra Hinojosa Hernandez and Andy King. What a treat it was to gather in the Edna Anderson-Taylor Communication Institute, directed by…
What a pleasure it was to be a part of the graduate mentoring panel at the 2024 Public Address Conference in Austin, TX. The conference as a whole was absolutely spectacular from start to finish. A huge shout-out to Annie Hill, Karma Chávez, and Stacey Sowards for putting together a really top-notch, innovative, and energy-filled…
The Rhetoric Society of America Conference took place in Denver this past May. It was truly a pleasure to see friends old and new and hear about fantastic ongoing projects. Below, amazing “old friends” I’ve known since graduate school (Jenell Johnson, Christa Olson, and Amy Wan). It’s so strange how none of us have aged…
This past week was a huge one for the amazing Olivia Webster. She successfully defended her M.A. comprehensive exams, a process that was made possible by her outstanding committee members (pictured below) including Drs. Crystal Lumpkins and Lezlie Frye! She also graduated AND accepted a new position with the Lauren McCluskey Foundation. I know it…
This week Kourtney Maison successfully defended her dissertation entitled, Unruly Visions: The Rhetorical Intersections of Humanity, Bodies, and Visual Zoerhetorics. Drs. Kent Ono, Mike Middleton, Angela Smith, and Helene Shugart (not pictured) were there to wish her well and discuss her compelling project. Kourtney is already flourishing in her position as Assistant Professor (and acting…
Our research team met last Friday to begin mapping out a paper associated with our interview study. The group is composed of undergraduate Jasmine Aguilar Lopez, Ph.D. student Gabrielle Garza, and graduating undergraduate (and future medical student!) Miya Jordan, as well as Dr. Madison Krall (meeting remotely from Seton Hall University) and me. I’ve had…
My wonderful friend, Dr. Raquel M. Robvais, was just announced as an ACLS Fellow for this coming academic year. Please check out the announcement here: Raquel M. Robvais – ACLS This is an extremely prestigious fellowship, and I can think of no one more deserving of this award than Raquel. Her work ethic, insight, and…
During my visit to Smith College, the Special Collections was displaying an exhibit on the author and famed poet Sylvia Path, who had been a student there in the 1950s. I was especially taken by her typewriter, the very one she used at school and then to type out her published writings later on. During…
This spring break, I took a variety of planes, trains, and automobiles to get to Smith College in Northampton, MA, and to do research in the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History held in Smith’s Special Collection Reading Room. My visit was a lovely adventure that had me filling out call slips like this one…
Last week I was quoted in this really compelling Science article on maternal mortality rates by Meredith Wadman. Check it out here: Have U.S. deaths from pregnancy complications tripled? | Science | AAAS
This past fall I was so excited to receive the National Communication Association’s Golden Monograph Award for an article I published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech in 2022 entitled, “Re-envisioning fertility science: From J. Marion Sims’s invasive gynecology to Sophia Kleegman’s ‘conservative surgery’ hermeneutic.” I am so lucky to have a community of people…
Lots of fantastic projects are on the agenda for M.A. student, Olivia Webster, this semester, and she’s able to take it all on with a cat on her head! 🙂 More specifically, she is continuing work with faculty member Marcie Young Cancio and Amplify Utah on a journalism-based storytelling project concerning those experiencing homelessness, and…
Please check out this article featured in The Setonian about Madison’s recognition as recipient of a 2023 Cheris Kramerae Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender: Dr. Krall Wins Kramerae Dissertation Award – The Setonian Madison received this recognition for her fantastic dissertation, U.S. Medical Controversy and Its…
Last spring, my wonderful graduate student, Gia Almuaili, and I had the opportunity to contribute to a fantastic forum in the journal Women & Language on the overturning of Roe v. Wade and what the new legislative landscape may entail. It was an absolutely wonderful experience led by W&L editor, Siobhan E. Smith-Jones, and you…
Earlier this fall, I was honored to be named Distinguished Scholar by the College of Humanities at the University of Utah. I am so grateful to the wonderful colleagues who nominated me for this award, and I am really treasuring this accompanying beehive-shaped sculpture. It looks great in my office, and it makes me smile…
My newest advisee, Olivia Webster, successfully (more than) passed her Program of Study Defense earlier this week. She is exploring the area of critical disability and race studies, as well as health and science communication and community-based methods. Her committee members were all so excited to see the progress that Olivia has made toward her…
On September 1st, I met with a group of awesome reproductive health students and researchers to begin a new collaboration on the communication of reproductive health information in the secondary-school sex education classroom. Dr. Madison Krall, Ph.D. student Gabby Garza, advanced undergraduate researchers Jasmine Aguilar Lopez and Miya Jordan, and I talked about coding and…
I’m thrilled to introduce Gabby Garza as a new PhD student in the Department of Communication here at the University of Utah and as a new advisee! Gabby’s research focuses on issues of reproductive health, health communication, and environmental communication. To say the least, Gabby’s expertise will be in high demand as we embark on…
Cheers to blue skies and piles of amazing books!
My faculty mentee this year is the amazing Dr. Andy King, which is pretty hilarious because he is always the one teaching me important things. Case in point, I had never heard of Salt Lake City’s Old Cuss Coffee Co., and you’d think I would have because I am often calling myself an ‘ol cuss.…
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit my old grad-school stomping grounds at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This had me going back down memory lane and looking up artifacts from those good days past. For instance, this photo of several lovely grad students in the program willing to come together…
My new article on Dr. Hannah Mayer Stone’s work to create medical contraceptive care in the early-to-mid-twentieth century is out in the American Journal of Public Health! The complete article is available to read here. Jensen, R. E. (2023). The First Publication on Contraception in a US Medical Journal, 1928: Hannah Mayer Stone’s Case for…
Our Rhetoric of Science seminar had the wonderful opportunity last week to talk with Dr. Aimee Roundtree about her fantastic book, Computer Simulation, Rhetoric, and the Scientific Imagination: How Virtual Evidence Shapes Science in the Making and in the News. Dr. Roundtree’s book offers a wonderful analysis illustrating how scientific knowledge creation is grounded in…
A subset of the Chemical Rhetoric Group has been working on a project that has required lots of coding. Fortunately, we are all up for finding ways to make that process fun with a nod to St. Patty’s Day and a killer data management system (as you can see below). We should have used shades…
This week, members of our Rhetoric of Science graduate seminar had the fantastic opportunity to visit the Marriott Library’s Special Collections. Original Cataloger for Special Collections, Allie McCormack (pictured below in the front of the class), prepared an engaging and illuminating presentation about archival search engines, theory, and analysis, and she let us page through…
The Sundance Film Festival was back to in-person business this year, and I joined a group of fantastic graduate students and friends to traverse up the mountain to see some truly outstanding films and take in the sights in Park City, UT. Some of my favorite films from this year’s festival (keeping in mind that…
The University of Utah has been such a hotspot for amazing speakers lately. We were so lucky to have Dr. Amanda Boyd, member of the Metis Nation of Alberta and Associate Professor in The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, give the B. Aubrey Fisher Memorial Lecture on October 27th. She…
This week I’m looking forward to Dr. Hernandez’s colloquium talk on “Critical Health Communication, Reproductive Justice, and Intersectionality: Trends, Media, and Considerations Moving Forward.” What a treat to have Dr. Hernandez visiting and getting us talking and thinking about issues of reproductive justice.
I’m thrilled to report that Rhetoric Society Quarterly‘s special issue on “Global Black Rhetorics: A New Framework for Engaging African and Afro Diasporic Rhetorical Traditions” is now published. The Special Issue Editors, Ronisha Browdy and Esther Milu, wrote a wonderful introduction to the issue that you can read here–“Global Black Rhetorics: A New Framework for…
In her first few days on the job as an assistant professor at Seton Hall University, Dr. Krall decided to join in with other faculty and staff to help the new students on move-in day. Here she is with the SHU Pirate and some of her new colleagues. Here’s wishing all the new college students,…
I’m so pleased to announce that Gia Almuaili has joined us here this fall as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication and that she has already gotten involved with Chemical Rhetoric Group projects. Gia, who is originally from Kuwait, received both her bachelors and her masters degrees in Strategic Communication from the University…
Our team’s newest publication is hot off the presses at Management Communication Quarterly. Please read the full article at: Cullinan, M. E., Maison, K., Parks, M. M., Krall, M. A., Krebs, E., Mann, B., & Jensen, R. E. (2022). “Seedlings in the Corporate Forest: Communicating Benevolent Sexism in Dow’s First Internal Affirmative-Action Campaign.” Management Communication…
I’m really excited that an essay coming from my time as a National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellow has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech. This essay follows the changes in gynecological “vision” instituted by the scientific, pedagogical writings of Dr. Sophia Kleegman in the mid-twentieth century, and it compares Dr. Kleegman’s…
Dr. Melissa Carrion, my fantastic former advisee who is now an Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was interviewed extensively in a recent article published in the New York Times. They Did Their Own ‘Research.’ Now What? – The New York Times (nytimes.com) She discussed research she published…
Our department was so excited to graduate an amazing group of Ph.D. (pictured above–photo credit to Avery Holton) and M.A. students this spring. Each and every one of those students has obtained a tenure-track position for the coming fall, and I am so excited to see them off into the next phase of their academic…
Last month, I had the opportunity to travel to San Diego for an NSF-funded workshop on inclusive language in the STEM disciplines. It was a wonderful trip mixing rhetoricians (you can see several of them hard at work if you look closely at the image below–John Lynch at the board, Raquel Robvais looking on from…
Several weeks ago, Madison entered a Zoom room with her Ph.D. Committee Members and, about two hours later, she left the room having earned a Doctorate of Philosophy (aka, a Ph.D.). She defended her dissertation research beautifully, and her excellent committee members (featured below) offered her amazing feedback and a double dose of CONGRATULATIONS because…
The great thing about Zoom meetings is that you sometimes get a glimpse into the lives and furry companions of those on the other side of the screen. At our last CRG meeting, these adorable fluff balls contributed to the meeting by walking over and perching on the keyboards of Chemical Rhetoric Group members, making…
Whenever I teach feminist communication and history, I can’t help but introduce the second-wave of feminism with this photograph from some time in 1980 or so (mostly because I love the shag carpet and my mom’s glasses and flip-flops). I call it, “Me, My Mom, and Another Baby,” and I’m pretty sure it captures us…
Students from my COMM 5950 class on strategic feminist communication and I had the opportunity to check out some of the women-and-gender-oriented archival holdings at the University of Utah’s Special Collections Library earlier this semester. We loved parceling through a sample of the library’s amazing collection of third and fourth wave zines, several of which…
For the Spring 2020 semester, I’m teaching COMM 3115: Communicating Science, Health, and the Environment which focuses on the idea that communication plays a fundamental role in public perceptions of science, health, and the environment. This class provides students with an overview of how these topics tend to be communicated in contexts ranging from the…
My planner is one that goes for five years, so although it says 2019 on the front it covers all the way until 2023. If the post-it note situation I’m dealing with here is any indication, I may be trying to pack too much information into both my planner and my brain. But the end-of-the-semester…
At the National Communication Association Conference in November, Madison Krall was elected to the position of ARSTM Secretary. ARSTM stands for the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and I am very excited that Madison will be taking on a leadership role in this vibrant and growing group of scholars.
Starting in January, Melissa will begin her new position on faculty in the Department of Communication at Drexel University, where she will teach classes and do research focused on non-profit communication. This allows her to draw from her extensive background in environmental, health, and intercultural communication, as well as her experience working with the Peace…
The 2021 National Communication Association Conference was held in November in Seattle and members of the Chemical Rhetoric Group were there and busy. Dr. Megan Cullinan did a wonderful job presenting an analysis our group has been working on with artifacts we garnered from the Science History Institute’s Othmer Library of Chemical History Archives.
This fall has been a very successful one in terms of academic defenses for our group (please note that, although I used this image from a boxing correspondence course as a header for this post, I’m happy to report that none of our defenses ever turned to fisticuffs). At the end of October, Kourtney Maison…
Over the past two weeks or so, both my undergraduate “Strategic Feminist Communication” class and my graduate “Rhetoric in the Archives” seminar have made trips to the Marriott Library Special Collections at the University of Utah to look at some of the fantastic primary sources held there and to get some great instruction in finding…
Last Friday, the students in my “Rhetoric in the Archives” seminar and I traveled downtown to the Utah State Archives, where we were treated by state archivists Ken Williams and Jim Kichas to a fantastic tour of the beautiful facilities there and a peak behind-the-scenes to see a range of astounding artifacts being stored, processed,…
In a new publication headed by Madison Krall, the Chemical Rhetoric Group analyzes the contents of the Science History Institute’s extensive Witco Stamp Collection, which features postage stamps from around the globe that represent chemistry and related sciences from 1910-1938 (see below for some great digitized examples of collection artifacts). You can find an online-first…
As the Associate Editor for Special Issues, I have had the very great pleasure of ushering in the last three special issues of the journal, Rhetoric Society Quarterly. The most recent issue is hot off the presses (2021; see below), and my last and final special issue (which will come out in the summer of…
After working-from-home for a year and a half, this semester I will be back in my office and back on campus to teach classes (a graduate seminar on archival methods and an undergraduate capstone class entitled “strategic feminist communication”). This week, I went to campus to try and find the buildings where my classes will…
From July 14th to July 16th of this year, Madison Krall took part in the National Communication Association’s Doctoral Honors Seminar, which accepts just a few of the top Ph.D. students in the field to engage with great established scholars and workshop their dissertation projects. This year, the seminar was held virtually due to the…
Earlier this week, we gathered as many of our group as we could and had a meeting for the first time since March of 2020 (one of us was on Zoom from the east coast, one of us was driving to the meeting on Zoom and arrived in the middle for the physical meeting, and…
My new article, “Theorizing Chemical Rhetoric: Toward an Articulation of Chemistry as a Public Vocabulary,” has been published in the Journal of Communication! I learned so much in the process of writing this piece and am hoping that it proves useful for others who are interested in how chemistry and its concepts circulate and are…
I found this little gem a few years back at the Schlesinger Library (pardon the poor photography). The library didn’t end up having much on Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi’s communications concerning infertility and reproductive health, which is what I was looking for, but it did have this excerpt from an obituary written about Jacobi on…
Megan and Melissa learned recently that their paper, “Art-as-Pedagogy for Environmental Activism: The Rhetoric of Washed Ashore’s Ocean Plastics Exhibition,” won the Top Paper Award at the 2021 Conference on Communication and Environment (COCE). Woot, woot! Here is the announcement on Twitter. Their research is funded by a 2019 National Geographic Early Career Grant. I…
At the end of April, we had a Chemical Rhetoric Group soiree, via Zoom. As you might imagine, the whole thing was very exclusive and very, very fancy in that it included science-themed party favors and a viewing of a new NOVA “Beyond the Elements” episode wherein we learned about some of the differences between…
This past spring, Madison learned that she was awarded a Ellen Christina Steffensen Cannon Scholarship for the second straight year to complete her dissertation project exploring regulatory rhetoric, thalidomide, and women’s reproductive health and medicine. Find out more about this outstanding recognition, which is bestowed on those pursuing “excellence in their chosen fields of Education…
Starting this coming fall, Ben will join the faculty at Eastern Oregon University as an Assistant Professor of Communication in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences! Below, see Ben during a recent visit to the area enjoying the beautiful, wooded mountains of La Grande. I can’t wait to hear about the fantastic adventures…
Melissa’s Text and Performance Quarterly essay, “Ecocultural adjustment: Revisiting acculturation through a Peace Corps sojourn,” has recently been featured in the National Communication Association publication Communication Currents, which translates communication scholarship for lay audiences. Check out the Communication Currents piece here, and find links to Melissa’s original article here, with the complete citation below. Parks,…
The journal Science Communication recently published our article “Strategic Place-Making and Public Scientific Outreach in the American Chemical Society’s National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program.” More than any other piece we’ve written as a group, I think this one had us working together as an interconnected unit the most. It involved traveling to (and finding!) multiple,…
Dr. Megan Cullinan (Chemical Rhetoric Group Member; Faculty at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA; all-around cool person) and her partner Rio Sabella (woodworker; jack of all trades; all-around cool person) have taken on one of the most intriguing projects I’ve ever heard of for the summer: they are serving as caretakers for a house…
Last week, Jana Cunningham interviewed me for the new University of Utah Humanities Radio Podcast. She asked about my research on Dr. Sophia Kleegman, specifically, a person who I have had a lot of fun learning about through my current NEH project on the history of infertility science. You can catch our conversation HERE. Thanks…
you see this cross stitch pattern and think it is HILARIOUS because . . . it references the Toulmin Model of argumentation. Several hours later, you realize it probably refers to a search warrant. But you still use it in your classes (to teach the Toulmin Model) and laugh and laugh for the first reason,…
Utah always provides opportunities for fun and a break from research in the wintertime, even during a pandemic!
Last week, members of the Chemical Rhetoric Group met via Zoom to do some coding and celebrate the elements. Of course we dressed up. Below you will see (clockwise): -Me as boron: element number 5 (usually gray-ish in color, this metalloid produces bright green flames when set on fire). -Megan Cullinan as mercury: element number…
Last week, the Chemical Rhetoric Group convened via Zoom for a very exciting hat party to celebrate some great successes we’ve had recently. We used this opportunity to show off our most fabulous hats, share science-oriented puns, and–as you can see in this photo–put some very cute cats in hats. Stay tuned for the theme…
I received a surprise email from my former professor, Dr. Ruth Anne Clark, earlier this semester. Dr. Clark was in charge of teaching me how to be a teaching assistant and instructor when I first came to graduate school at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in (wait for it) 2001. That semester I had been…
Madison Krall’s paper was featured on the Top Student Papers in Theatre, Film, and New Multi-Media panel at the National Communication Conference this year. Entitled “Dirty Dancing’s Stagnating Subplot: Critiquing the Commemorative Control of Film for U.S. Public Memory,” Madison’s research in this project ties into her dissertation work exploring the regulatory history of women’s…
Ben’s paper, “Theorizing Intersectional Stigma Management Communication at the Crossroads: LGBTAIQ+ and Autistic Subjectivities,” was featured on the Disability Issues Caucus Top Paper Session at the National Communication Association Conference this year. This research comes out of Ben’s dissertation work and draws from 30 interviews Ben did with individuals who are both LGBTQIA+ and autistic…
I have always liked tea, but the pandemic and lots of time at home near a teapot has developed in me something like a burning, chemical love for tea. Add to that not one but two tea advent calendars for the holidays and I’ve become a tea-enthusiast to-the-brim (har, har, har). My favorites are English…
The Chemical Rhetoric group was incredibly honored this year to receive the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine‘s Article of the Year Award for our article, “Mapping Nature’s Scientist: The posthumous demarcation of Rosalind Franklin’s Crystallographic Data.” Check out this beautiful plaque! Many thanks to ARSTM for the organization’s support.
Dr. Melissa Parks won the 2020 Dissertation Award in Environmental Communication from the National Communication Association for her dissertation, “From Redwoods Preservation to Genomic Restoration: Genocentric Ecologies in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries.” Woot, woot! Read about the award and Melissa’s research, here.
On September 10, 2020, I was honored to give the keynote address for Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science’s 5th Annual Women in Science and Healthcare (WiSH) Symposium. This was especially exciting in this particular year because the symposium was celebrating what would have been crystallographer Rosalind Franklin’s 100th birthday, and Rosalind Franklin’s niece,…
This fall, Dr. Benjamin Mann began a new position as a Post-Doctoral Fellow of Communication at Dixie State University in the College of Humanities and Social Change. In this position, Ben serves as a full-time faculty member, instructor of Communication courses, and researcher. Find out more about this position and Ben’s research and teaching, here…
This fall, Dr. Melissa Parks began her tenure as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Humanities and Social Change Center. There she is working with an interdisciplinary team of scholars to explore issues of social change related to the environment, science, technology, and the broader culture. You can find out more…
Last spring, Madison learned that she had been awarded a 2020-2021 Steffensen Cannon Fellowship to support her dissertation research on regulatory rhetoric and the mid-twentieth century thalidomide disaster. See our departmental announcement of Madison’s award, here. Find out more about the competitive Steffensen Cannon Fellowship, here. The fellowship was established at the University of Utah…