Department of English

My research and teaching are located in the field of contemporary political rhetoric with a primary focus on democracy and social movement rhetoric. I am particularly interested in questions about the impact of left and right radical political rhetorics on more conventional politics. How and when do radical imagery, arguments, technologies, and narratives make their way into more conventional politics, particularly in an era of political polarization? My current book project, Performing the Ban: Polarization and Free Speech Rhetoric, describes how bans on artistic, intellectual, and political expression can galvanize funding, sales, dissent, and support, especially around issues of race and queerness. My first book, The Democratic Ethos: Authenticity and Instrumentalism in US Movement Rhetoric after Occupy, analyzes legal writing, digital petitions, non-fiction popular press books, speeches, film, viral controversies, street protest, community organizing, mass conference calls, speeches, civil disobedience, direct action, and journalism to develop an analysis of the impact that the Occupy demonstrations have had on democratic political rhetoric. The Democratic Ethos was awarded the James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address from the National Communication Association. 

Selected Publications

• The Democratic Ethos: Authenticity and Instrumentalism in US Movement Rhetoric after Occupy (University of South Carolina Press, 2022).
• “What is Performative Activism?” Philosophy & Rhetoric 55, no. 1 (2022).
• “The Lessons of Community Rights Ordinances for Democratic Philosophizing.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 51, no. 3 (2018).
• “Did the Trumpian Counterpublic Dissent Against the Dominant Model of Campaign Finance?” Javnost - The Public: Journal of the European Institute for Communication and Culture 24, no. 3 (2017).
• “The People Against Corporate Personhood: Doxa and Dissensual Democracy.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 101, no. 3 (2015): 485-508.
• “Digital Petitions Against Corporate Rights: Slacktivist Democracy?” Review of Communication 15, no. 3 (2015).