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 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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
In the beginning of June, Madison and Robin headed to the University of Maryland to take part in a Rhetoric Society of America Institute Seminar entitled, Medical Rhetoric in the Archives. Robin worked with the amazing Professor Jordynn Jack to lead the seminar of about 30 scholars through a variety of readings, discussions, and activities…
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…
Click here to check out the issue’s compelling introduction by journal editors Lisa Meloncon and J. Blake Scott, as well as fantastic articles by Lisa DeTora, Celeste Condit, S. Scott Graham, Mary Lay Schuster, Colleen Derkatch, and more. Below, editor Lisa Meloncon and I coordinate at the 2017 Rhetoric of Health & Medicine Symposium.
Dr. Ray’s engaging B. Aubrey Fisher Memorial Lecture was entitled “A Green Oasis in the History of my Life: Race and the Culture of Debating in Antebellum Charleston, South Carolina.” Here she is pictured after her lecture with me and Dr. Kent Ono. Dr. Ray was also kind enough to offer a seminar with faculty…
