Issue 15
A 3D-rendered human figure seen from behind, composed of hundreds of thin metallic shards or pins, lit in teal and warm amber tones against a dark gradient background.
Embodied and Environmental Rhetorics
2012

"Each kind of representation commits users to a particular awareness of location as a context for rhetorical action that is accomplished through the concatenation of multiple streams of information, often across applications."

—Jason Swarts, “Being Somewhere: The Meaning(s) of Location in Mobile Rhetorical Action”
A. C. For Unsplash+

Articles

A pair of shoes sits on an ornate carpet near a couch.

Spaces and Surfaces of Invention: A Visual Ethnography of Game Development

Brian J. McNely, Paul Gestwicki, Bridget Gelms, and Ann Burke
Beyond germinal work in the reception-oriented traditions of visual rhetoric, we see an opportunity for critical discussion of visual research methods in the field. Despite a long and nuanced history of empirical visual research in anthropology and sociology, such methods have been strangely underrepresented in studies of rhetoric and writing, even as the field has adopted more conventional ethnographic and qualitative approaches from anthropology, sociology, education, and communication studies.
A toy store ad with an adult and child models.

National Identity, Normalization, and Equilibrium: The Rhetoric of Breast Implants in Venezuela

Alexandra Hidalgo
The analysis of material rhetoric to explain how cultural beliefs in Venezuela shape women’s decisions to undergo breast implant surgery. It shows that participants recognize these rhetorical pressures yet still view the surgery as positive for themselves and their society.
Calligraphy pen writes on lined paper.

Composition’s Akrasia: The Devaluing of Intuitive Expertise in Writing Assessment

Paul Walker
We care about our fellow teachers because scholars of writing and rhetoric are first teachers of writing and rhetoric. And implicit in teaching are indirect and direct attempts to identify whether what one purports to teach is learned by the student. Teaching without assessment of learning cannot be labeled as teaching, but rather lecturing, preaching, or merely speaking. The present situation, however, is a result of the separation of assessment from teaching, and in particular, the distinction between writing assessment and writing instruction.
Picture of a bookshelf at the Lesbian Herstory Archives.

At Home With The Lesbian Herstory Archives

Madhu Narayan
The LHA works not just as an Archives,but also as a home where community members can meet and socialize. In order to sustain this unique blend of communal and archival commitments, the LHA has invented a series of rhetorical strategies that are aimed at inviting community participation. These strategies involve a constant process of persuasion, a deliberate argument about why members of lesbian communities should donate their materials to the Archives and how this will help future generations flourish.
Person writing in a composition book at a desk.

Rhetorical-Ecological Links in Composition History

Nathan Shepley
As local histories of written rhetoric at American higher education institutions have proliferated, researchers must grapple with how to apply their insights more broadly. These histories reveal that writing instruction has long involved tension between conformity and resistance, with institutional mission and student population shaping how closely schools followed dominant rhetorical models.
Collection of self-help books.

I'll Teach You to See Again: Rhetorical Healing as Reeducation in Iyanla Vanzant's Self-Help Books

Tamika L. Carey
Scholarship on self-help literature critiques the calls for self-assessment and emphasis on learning in Vanzant’s passage, and materialist rhetorical frameworks offer ways to identify the implications of these texts. However, the lack of specific attention to the function and appeal of these books for African American women, in particular, understates the implications of the efforts to teach women to see again in these texts.

Reviews

Cover to Rhetorica in Motion: Feminist Rhetorical Methods and Methodologies

Review of Rhetorica in Motion: Feminist Rhetorical Methods and Methodologies Edited by Eileen E. Schell and K.J. Rawson

Published July 5, 2012

Eileen E. Schell and K.J. Rawson,Editors Rhetorica in Motion: Feminist Rhetorical Methods and Methodologies, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, 248 pages, ISBN: 9780822973676

Coauthors
Michelle Villarreal, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Book Cover to Teaching Resistance

Review of Teaching the Rhetoric of Resistance: The Popular Holocaust and Social Change in a Post 9/11 World by Robert Samuels

Published September 16, 2012

Robert Samuels, Teaching the Rhetoric of Resistance: The Popular Holocaust and Social Change in a Post 9/11 World, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 191 pages, ISBN: 9780230602724

Coauthors
Kelly A. Concannon Mannise, Nova Southeastern University