Welcome, cadets! I’m looking forward to taking this rhetorical, historical adventure with you. Or is it rhetorical historical, no comma? As you’ll learn in this class, the systems of symbols we use to communicate, such as language, grammar, and punctuation, matter when we make meaning. So that’s why I’m asking a not-so-rhetorical question.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I didn’t start my career as a rhetorician or even an English major. I started as a STEM major in marine biology. I won’t go through the whole history of it, but I in my junior year, I declared English after taking a class that challenged the way I viewed the world. I loved the idea that language shapes what we know and how we know it. For me, that has implications spanning all the disciplines.

 

 

My M.A. in English focused as much as possible on medieval literature. I wrote my M.A. thesis about how the character Merlin changes in Arthurian literature. I translated a text from Latin into English for part of my M.A. Once again, I found that language matters. Because I worked closely with language and understood the importance of gendering through language, I was able to argue that Merlin is a non-gendered entity who identifies more with the feminine Britain/Wales than the masculine Roman/Anglo-Saxon cultures and, therefore, is a subversive character and suggests a subversive identity for the British nation. (I really love that thesis still, but the title is really embarrassing. By the way, titles matter!)

Merlin’s Myth and Magic via Compfight

 

During a gap year between my M.A. and Ph.D., I taught a full slate of composition courses at my alma mater while applying to graduate programs in medieval literature. As I received acceptances from a variety of great schools, I grew frustrated with my profession and the curriculum I had developed. I was teaching students literature as though I were fostering a group of English majors, but I didn’t have a single English major in the my entire 120 students! What was I doing? Why were we–teachers of English and composition in particular–so focused on literature when we needed to focus on writing, reading, and research?

I started to focus more and more on teaching argument: a conclusion backed by reasons. I did this by turning my composition classrooms into mock court rooms. We tried fairy tale characters (Cinderella was found guilty of something, but now I can’t remember) and popular criminal cases. “Reasons,” I taught, must be textual evidence relevant to the context of the case. Not all evidence matters.

All of this led me to switch my concentrations during my Ph.D. at the University of Tennesee (go, Big Orange!) from medieval literature with an exam in rhetoric and composition to rhetoric and composition with an exam in medieval literature. My interest in identity studies from my M.A. thesis made its way into my dissertation, which studies the way planning historical parks is itself an act of rhetorical identity making, and therefore questions identity as inhere but rather as constituted and constructed.

As a scholar, I study the rhetoric of public memory, which means I draw from classical rhetoricians’ work, such as Aristotle, and contemporary rhetorical theories such as material rhetorics and cultural rhetorics. You’ll get to that in Rhetorical Traditions II. In the simplest terms, I get to go to historical parks and museums for fun. And I do mean fun.

Here’s a picture of me at Charles Towne Landing in Charleston, SC, which I studied for my diss:

I call this piece, “Prisoner of my Research.” I literally (and I mean literally in the literal definition of the word) got engaged at this park.

I’m working on a book on World War II memory in the South. Feel free to ask me about it. It’s a work in a progress and will take years to finish.

(If you haven’t been to the National World War II Museum in NOLA, go, I tell thee go!)

Now, as a teacher, I’d like to say that I’m challenging. You’ll have to ask my former students what they think. I have high expectations of you all. I expect you to read everything assigned. I will be. I expect you to write, revise, throw away a draft, and start anew. I expect you to come to my office hours, where we will struggle and work together to help you through the invention process. You can do this.

My office hours are Monday and Wednesday 9:45-11 and 1-2, and Tuesday and Thursday 1-3. Fridays and all other times are by appointment. The best way to make an appointment is to email me with a list of times that are best for you. I know you’re busy, so I will do what I can to work with your schedule.

I’m excited for this journey. Rhetoric means something to me. I hope it will come to mean something unique and special to you.

What questions do you have about rhetoric or this class? Post them in the comments below, and I’ll devote some time Thursday to them.