My teaching interests – fueled by my research in medical discourse, the rhetoric of science, ethnographic and historical methods, and gender studies and the body – can be divided into four broad categories:
1. Writing and Communication (Skills- and Concepts-Based)
Technical & Professional Communication & Technical Presentations:
Introductory and advanced courses in professional and technical writing as well as courses focused specifically on technical presentations in professional settings.
Writing About Science & Technology:
A nonfiction/advanced composition course focusing on popular science writing as well as the implications of science and technology on society.
Medical and Health Communication:
A genre-based course based on the analysis and production of key forms of written communication common in the health professions.
Visual Rhetoric and Information Design:
A conceptual and hands-on introduction both (1) to visual texts and visual displays as rhetorical/persuasive objects and (2) to the major elements of visual information design, in an attempt to expose students to the basics of visual communication and information architecture as well as the basic skills involved in designing visual texts.
2. Science, Technology, and Medicine
Ethnography of Science, Technology, and Professional Communication:
A topics course that surveys recent, landmark ethnographies in professional/technical communication, medical anthropology, and science and technology studies in order to understand the interconnections between these three disciplines and the ways science, technology, and policy impact contemporary culture, industry, and politics.
Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine:
An introduction to the research in the rhetoric of science, analyzing the history, the contribution, and the future of the field but also learning the methodological approaches this body of research entails.
Gender & Race and the Rhetoric of Medicine & Biotechnology:
Case-study-based explorations of the role medical and biotechnological discourses play in the formation and representation of race, gender, sexuality, and the body.
History of Technical and Scientific Communication:
A course that investigates key contemporary debates in technical communication (for example, the shift in ideas of authorship, the influences of globalization and localization, and the prominence of multimodal and visual texts) by understanding their historical antecedents and parallels, thus moving from the pages of the trade journal Technical Communication to one particularly rich moment in history (Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries).
3. Research Methods (Qualitative and Historical)
Ethnography (Traditional):
An introduction and “how to” guide to participant-observation, fieldnote and data collection, ethnographic interviewing, visual data, transcription and data analysis, and writing ethnographic narratives.
Digital Ethnography:
A course modeled after the traditional course save that this one focuses specifically on computer-mediated interaction in virtual environments, offering both a “how to” and an analysis of benefits and drawbacks.
Qualitative Interviewing:
A course focused on one-on-one and small-group interviewing, covering such topics as approach (oral histories, life narratives, focus groups, etc.), transcription techniques, and methods of analysis.
Historical Methods:
A course designed as both a practical introduction to historical research (primary source material and archival research) as well as a conceptual exploration of historiography, historical witness, and theories of historical research.
Visual Methodologies:
A course meant to introduce students to the major arguments of the visual culture movement/debate and expose students to an array of visual methodologies (for example, content analysis, multimodal analysis, semiotics, new historical methods, Foucauldian discourse analysis, etc).
4. Rhetorical Theory and Gender
Contemporary Rhetorical Theory:
A survey of the major figures of the 20th and 21st century Anglo-American rhetorical and discourse tradition: for example, Kenneth Burke, Chaim Perelman, Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, Stephen Toulmin, Michael Foucault, Norman Fairclough, Jacques Derrida, Helene Cixous, Maurice Charland, Gloria Anzaldua, Stanley Fish, and Judith Butler.
Queer Theory & Anti-Social Rhetoric:
An introduction to the origins, influences, arguments, and contradictions of queer theory, focusing specifically on the work of Michael Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, Michael Warner, Judith Halberstam, Tim Dean, and Jose Esteban-Munoz.
Michael Foucault & Judith Butler:
An in-depth exploration of the work of these two theorists focusing specifically on their contributions to notions of knowledge, power, the body, identity, discourse, gender, sexuality, and ethics.
