M.A., English, 1989, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A.B., English, 1983, Davidson College, NC
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst (2006-present); also Director of the University Writing Program (2007-present)
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2004-2006); also Director of Freshman Composition (English 100) (2004-2006)
Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1998-2004); also Director of Intermediate Composition (English 201) (2001-2004)
Assistant Professor, Department of English, New Mexico State University (1996-1998)
Instructor, Departments of English (1991-1996) and Design (1993-1996) and the CMAP Summer Program (1992-1995), Carnegie Mellon University
Instructor, Department of English, Laredo Community College, TX (1989-1991)
City of Rhetoric: Revitalizing the Public Sphere in Metropolitan America. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008.
"Subjects of the Inner City: Writing the People of Cabrini-Green." Towards a Rhetoric of Everyday Life: New Directions in Research on Writing, Text, and Discourse. Ed. Martin Nystrand and John Duffy. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. 207-244.
"The Streets of Thurii: Discourse, Democracy, and Design in the Classical Polis." Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 32.3 (Summer, 2002): 5-32.
"The End of Composition-Rhetoric." Visions and Revisions: Continuity and Change in Rhetoric and Composition. Ed. James D. Williams. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. 109-129.
"Rhetoric as a Course of Study." College English 61.2 (November, 1998): 169-191.
"Design Talk: Constructing the Object in Studio Conversations." Design Issues 14.2 (Summer, 1998): 41-62. back to top
"The Space of Argumentation: Urban Design, Civic Discourse, and the Dream of the Good City." Argumentation 12.2 (May, 1998): 147-166.
"Epistemologies of Style." Issues in Writing 8.2 (Spring, 1997): 134-157.
"Learning to Link Artifact and Value: The Arguments of Student Designers." Language and Learning Across the Disciplines 2.1 (April, 1997): 58-84.
"Can Pictures Be Arguments?" Argumentation and Advocacy 33.1 (Summer, 1996): 11-22.
"Professional-Client Discourse in Design: Variation in Accounts of Social Roles and Material Artifacts by Designers and their Clients." Text 16.2 (April, 1996): 133-160.
"The Search for an Integrational Account of Language: Roy Harris and Conversation Analysis." Language Sciences 17.1 (January, 1995): 73-98. (Reprinted as "Is Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis an 'Integrational' Account of Language?" in Linguistics Inside Out: Roy Harris and His Critics. Ed. George Wolf and Nigel Love. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997. 182-207.)
"Collaborative Argument Across the Visual/Verbal Interface." Technical Communication Quarterly 2.1 (Winter, 1993): 37-49. (Co-authored with David Kaufer, Mark Werner, and Ann Sinsheimer-Weeks.)
“The Rhetoric Revival, the Process Revolution, and the Difference Eight Years Makes: Revisiting the Emergence of Composition-Rhetoric as an Academic Discipline.”
“Finding a Place for School in Rhetoric’s Public Turn.”
“A Fourth Genre of Classical Greek Rhetoric?”
“Reductions of the Already Reduced: The Neglect of Qualifiers, Rebuttals, and Backing in Appropriations of the ‘Toulmin Model’ in Contemporary Composition Pedagogy.” With Melvin Hall.
"The Jury Project: Towards a Pedagogy of Everyday Public Discourse."
"The Rupture of Expertise."
“The Powers and Perils of Liminality: Freshman Comp at UW-Madison, 1967-1970.” Conference on College Composition and Communication (New York, March 24, 2007).
“Facing ’Chaos and Old Night’: The 1969 Abolition of Freshman English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.” With Rasha Diab and Mira Shimabukuro. Rhetoric and Composition Colloquium of the UW-Madison English Department (Madison, WI, April 14, 2006).
“An Apology for the First-Year Writing Course Taught by English Department GTAs,” in panel Alternative Models for Writing Programs: A Critical Conversation,” Modern Language Association (Washington, DC, December 28, 2005).
“An Incomplete Recovery: The Absence of the Progymnasmata in 20th Century Revivals of Rhetoric,” International Society for the History of Rhetoric (Los Angeles, July 13, 2005).
“Reductions of the Already Reduced: The Neglect of Qualifiers, Rebuttals, and Backing in Appropriations of the ‘Toulmin Model’ in Contemporary Composition Pedagogy” (co-authored by Melvin Hall), Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (Hamilton, ON, May 21, 2005).
“Putting On Our Janus Faces: Why Addressing the Public Need Not Mean Denigrating the Academic,” Conference on College Composition and Communication (San Francisco, March 18, 2005).
“Agency By Lot: Towards an Alternative Model of Politics for Civic Education,” UW-Madison Center for the Humanities (Madison, February 4, 2005).
“Helping Student Arguers Represent Opposing Positions Fairly: A Rogerian Perspective,” UW-Madison Teaching and Learning Symposium (Madison, May 18, 2004). back to top
“A Century of Change: The Politics of First Year Composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1900-2000,” Conference on College Composition and Communication (San Antonio, March 26, 2004).
"Quintilian as Rhetor," International Society for the History of
Rhetoric (Calahorra, Spain, July 17, 2003).
"A Proposal for Place-Based Cultural and Political Theory, Or, Why We
Need
to Adjust the Socio-Spatial Dialectic Once Again," Rhetoric and
Composition
Colloquium (Madison, January 31, 2003).
"The Streets of Thurii: Rhetoric, Democracy, and Design in the Classical Polis," Rhetoric Society of America (Las Vegas, May 23, 2002).
"Residents, Owners, Citizens: The Writers of 1230 North Burling St.," Conference on College Composition and Communication (Chicago, March 21, 2002).
"The Matter of Argumentation: Using the Material Topics to Teach Writing," Conference on College Composition and Communication (Chicago, March 23, 2002).
"Writing as Civic Deliberation: Lessons from the Jury Project," Writing as a Human Activity Interdisciplinary Conference, The Writing Program and the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, October 6,2001).
"The Writing Space of the Inner City: The Case of the Cabrini-Green Public Housing Project," Conference on College Composition and Communication (Denver, March 16, 2001).
"City of Rhetoric: Discourse, Democracy, and Design in the Redevelopment of an Urban Neighborhood," invited lecture sponsored by the Center for the Study of Public Scholarship, the Department of African-American Studies, and the Postcolonial Studies Group, Emory University (Atlanta, March 5, 2001).
"Analyzing Arguments through the Material Topics," Third International Workshop on Argumentative Text Processing (Verona, Italy, September 6, 2000).
"Classical Models for the Teaching of Writing," European Association for Research on Learning and Instructions, Special Interest Group on Writing (Verona, Italy, September 7, 2000). back to top
"Between Community and Society: The City as Scene of Rhetorical Education," American Society for the History of Rhetoric (Chicago, November 3, 1999).
"The Student as Juror: An Alternative Approach to the Teaching of Public Writing," Western States Composition Conference (Tempe, AZ, October 23, 1999).
"The Rupture of Expertise: Professionalism and the Humanities at Century’s End," Rhetoric and Composition Colloquium of the UW-Madison English Department (Madison, WI, September 17, 1999).
"Classical Rhetorical Education: Lessons from a Neglected Part of the Tradition," Conference on College Composition and Communication (Atlanta, March 26, 1999).
"Rhetoric and the City: A Proposal to Recontextualize 'Civic' Discourse," Conference on College Composition and Communication (Chicago, April 3, 1998).
"The Space of Argumentation: Rhetoric and Urban Design," Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (St. Catharines, ON, May 15, 1997).
"Orders of Time in the Writing of a 'Lay' History: Dorothy Spruill Redford’s Somerset Homecoming," Modern Language Association (Chicago, December 27, 1995).
"Rhetorical Practices in University Public Relations: An Observational Study," Carnegie Mellon University Rhetoric Colloquium (Pittsburgh, October 12, 1995).
"Making Academic News: An Observational Study of Rhetorical Practice and Media Choice in University Public Relations" (co-authored by Jolene Galegher), Conference on College Composition and Communication (Washington, DC, March 24, 1995).
"A Rhetoric of the Visual: Some Considerations for Research and Theory," Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition (State College, PA, July 15, 1994).
"The Interaction of the Visual and Verbal Arts at Chartres: Revisiting a Rhetorical 'Complex,'" Rhetoric Society of America (Norfolk, May 21, 1994).
"Representing Rhetoric: Word, Image, Building, and Ritual in a 12th Century Architectural - Oratorical Complex," Group for Research into the Institutionalization and Professionalization of Knowledge-Production (Minneapolis, April 15, 1994). back to top
"Moving from Representation to Action: Critical Moments in the Early Stages of a Graphic Design Project," Conference on College Composition and Communication (Nashville, March 19, 1994).
"The Interaction of Visual and Verbal Rhetoric in a Twelfth-Century 'Text': An Analysis of the Sculptural Program on the West Façade of Chartres Cathedral," Carnegie Mellon University Rhetoric Colloquium (Pittsburgh, October 14, 1993).
"Patterns of Coordination and Communication Among PR Professionals" (co-authored by and presented with Jolene Galegher), Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition (State College, PA, July 9, 1993).
"Design as Social Negotiation: Situating Visual Artifacts in Contexts of Use," Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition (State College, PA, July 8, 1993).
"Talking About Drugs: Argumentative Logic in Schools and Communities," Conference on College Composition and Communication (San Diego, April 1, 1993).
"Civic Writing," Texas Joint Council of Teachers of English (Corpus Christi, TX, October, 1990).