You know the stars have aligned well when scholars living in Utah, New Jersey, and Montana can all find a convenient time to meet via Zoom, and at the tail-end of the fall semester no less. What we have been calling our “pill project” is making great progress thanks to the hard work of these…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
You can call him Dr. Mann! In mid-December, Benjamin Mann successfully defended his dissertation, “Intersectional Stigma Communication, Demi-rhetoricity, and Critical Health Communication: Affirming (Neuro)queer Subjectivities.” His committee members agreed that he had put together an important project grounded in interviews with hard-to-reach and often overlooked individuals and that his research would go a long way…
From May 20-23, Melissa Parks joined with other scholars and community activists in Reno, NV to take part in the RSA Project in Power, Place, and Publics: Rhetorical Cartographies. The group as a whole focused on rhetorically analyzing the University of Nevada, Reno Campus Master Plan. Melissa’s specific working group, led by Professor Bridie McGreavy…
Senior honors student Maya Kobe-Rundio will graduate this spring with a degree in Communication and the 2019 College of Humanities Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award. Read more about her amazing work here.
