About
I am a Ph.D. Student (A.B.D.) in the Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design Program at Clemson University. My primary research interests are in rhetoric, composition theory, new media, and nonmodern rhetorics including the actor-network theory (Bruno Latour, Annemarie Mol), assemblage theory (Jane Bennett, Manuel DeLanda), media ecologies (Matthew Fuller, Friedrich Kitter, Jussi Parikka), and new feminist materialism (Karen Barad, Elizabeth Grosz). I seek to ground these theoretical frameworks through considerations of digital literacies and composition pedagogy by exploring models such as serious games, newsgames, networked and new media art, and augmented reality apps.
I have just finished (August 2012) a full draft of my dissertation entitled, "Actants, Agents, and Assemblages: Delivery and Writing in an Age of New Media," and am in the process of revising. My dissertation theorizes the canon of delivery by considering the interdisciplinary frameworks of actor-network, new materialism, and assemblage theories. Delivery theorists correctly equate medium with delivery, but focus exclusively on the circulation of symbolic forces, marginalizing the affordances and constraints posed by the technologies themselves. By revising the argument that digital and visual rhetoric is primarily concerned with symbols and representational content, this study rethinks delivery as a process of distributed agency mediated through nonhuman technological actors, networks, and assemblages. In turn, I reconceive of politics and rhetorical activism through contemporary delivery machines such as augmented reality, networked media, and activist videogames.
I teach visual rhetoric and multimodal composition at Clemson as a graduate teaching assistant in first-year composition, technical communication, and science writing. I have served in the past as the Assistant Director of First Year Writing under Dr. Cynthia Haynes, and am currently teaching an upper-division course in writing in the health professions.
Photo: David Hammonds ending the cycle of potlatch through networked art.
Electrate Agora
Object-Oriented Rhetoric
Digital Humanities
New Media Theory and Art