Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics Faculty
Janet M. Atwill, Ph.D., Purdue University, Professor
Email: jatwill@utk.edu
Janet M. Atwill investigates Greek rhetoric in antiquity and teaches courses in critical and rhetorical theory, writing, and histories of rhetoric. Her books include: The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition, edited with Richard Graff and Art Walzer (SUNY P, 2004); Perspectives on Rhetorical Invention, edited with Janice Lauer (U of Tennessee P, 2002); and Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition (Cornell UP, 1998). She has co-authored two composition textbooks: Writing: A College Handbook, fifth edition, with James Heffernan and John Lincoln (W. W. Norton, 2001) and Four Worlds of Writing: Inquiry and Action in Context, with Janice Lauer, Andrea Lunsford, et al. (Addison, Wesley, Longman, 2000). She is completing a book on invention and art in the discourses of Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristides, two Greek rhetors of the Second Sophistic. She presently serves on the Board of the Rhetoric Society of America and as Chair of the MLA Executive Committee on History and Theory of Rhetoric and Composition. She is past president of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric and a member of the Editorial Boards of Advances in the History of Rhetoric and Philosophy and Rhetoric; she also serves as a referee for a number of journals and university presses. Her awards and honors include: National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2006-07, the Chancellor’s Senior Research Award, 2006, Lindsey Young Distinguished Professorship, 2006-08, and Visiting Fellow, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and Project on the Rhetoric of Inquiry, University of Iowa, 2006.
Kirsten F. Benson, Ed.D., The University of Tennessee, Writing Center Director
Email: kbenson@utk.edu
Kirsten Benson directs UTK’s Writing Center and supervises the Department of English’s technology-enhanced writing classroom. She teaches courses in persuasive and public writing. Her research interests focus on the relationship between public rhetoric and the establishment of American educational policies, and on how institutional contexts affect students’ opportunities to learn. She has written a textbook for students in writing workshop courses, co-edited a text for first-year composition writers, and published work on the schooling experiences of academically at-risk African-American students in The Journal of Higher Education. She is a former president of the Southeastern Writing Center Association. Her current project involves an investigation of how multi-disciplinary research skills are acquired and demonstrated by first-year college writers.
Bethany Kay Dumas, Ph.D. University of Arkansas,
J.D. University of Tennessee College of Law, Professor
Email: dumasb@utk.edu
Professor of English and Member of the IDP Linguistics Program, The University of Tennessee. B.A. Lamar University, 1959, M.A. University of Arkansas, 1961, Ph.D. University of Arkansas, 1971, J.D., University of Tennessee, 1985. Published author on language variation, discourse analysis, and language in judicial process, especially jury instructions and product warnings. Teaches courses and workshops, including CLE workshops, in variation and language and law topics. Has testified in court cases since 1984.
Selected Publications: Bethany Dumas
Jenn Fishman, Ph.D., Stanford University, Assistant Professor
Email: jfishman@utk.edu
Jenn Fishman researches at the intersection of rhetoric, writing, and performance. Her interests span from historical rhetorics to contemporary writing research, and her publications examine different aspects of performance and writing in both the long eighteenth century and the present day. Her most recent work includes "Taking the High Road: Teaching for Transfer in an FYC Program,"a profile of FYC program revisions co-authored with Mary Jo Reiff (Composition Forum 18) and "Educating Jane," co-authored with Andrea Lunsford (forthcoming in Stories of Mentoring edited by Michelle Eble and Lynée Gaillet). Her current book-length project, Public Education: Performance and Modern Rhetorical Paideia examines rhetoric education in the eighteenth-century extracurriculum. A long-time member of the Stanford Study of Writing, she is also co-principal investigator of the Embodied Literacies Project. Together with her coauthors and co-researchers, she received the 2006 Braddock Award and a 2006 WPA Research Grant. Active in CCCC, the Coalition for Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, and RSA, Dr. Fishman is an alumna of Kenyon College, Stanford University, the School of Criticism and Theory, and the RSA Biennial Summer Institute.
David Gold, Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin, Assistant Professor
Email: dgold1@utk.edu
David Gold's interests include the history of rhetoric, rhetorical theory, and composition pedagogy. He is particularly interested in the voices of marginalized rhetors and the intersections between literacy and civic action, and he seeks to understand how minority, female, working-class, and first-generation college students have used their rhetorical education in public and professional spheres. He is the author of Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947 (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008), and has published essays in College English, College Composition and Communication, Rhetoric Review, The Writing Instructor, MLA Profession, and other publications. His awards include a 2001 Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, the 2004 Rhetoric Society of America Dissertation Award, and a 2006 Spencer Foundation Research Grant. He is currently at work on "Sisters of the South: Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Citizenship at Public Women's Colleges" with co-author Catherine Hobbs.
Russel Hirst, Ph.D., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Associate Professor
Email: rkh@utk.edu
Russel Hirst is currently director of the department’s program in technical communication. He is a senior member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), a former president of the East Tennessee Chapter of that society, co-editor of Education in Technical Communication: Academic Programs That Work (STC, 1997), co-author of A Short Guide to Business Writing (Prentice Hall, 1995), and an editorial board member for the Journal of Technical Writing & Communication. He has published book chapters and articles on topics in the history and theory of rhetoric in collections such as Oratorical Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Transformations in the Theory and Practice of Rhetoric, (Southern Illinois UP, 1993) and Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory (Southern Methodist UP, 1994), and in journals such as Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Technical Communication, the Journal of Communication and Religion, and the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. His current research focuses on style and document design for scientific and technical communication.
Curriculum Vitae: Russel Hirst
Michael L. Keene, Ph.D., University of Texas, Professor
Email: mkeene@utk.edu
Michael L. Keene is creator and former director of the concentration in technical communication. In addition to courses in business, technical, and professional writing, he also teaches in the graduate program in Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics. His publications include thirteen books, in addition to numerous articles and chapters. The most recent publications are Alice Paul: The Campaign for Suffrage, with Kate Adams. (University of Illinois Press, 2007); The Easy Access Handbook, fourth edition (with Kate Adams), McGraw-Hill 2005; Instant Access (McGraw-Hill, 2003, with Kate Adams; Canadian edition 2007); Successful Writing, 5th ed. (Norton Publishers, 2003, with Maxine Hairston); and Against the Grain: A Volume in Honor of Maxine Hairston (Hampton Press, 2002; ed., with Jolliffe, et al.). Current book-length projects include Controlling Representations: Depictions of Women in a Mainstream Newspaper, 1900-1950, with Kate Adams and Melanie McKay, forthcoming 2009 from Hampton Press; and The Frenzy of the Visible: Images of Women 1890-1920, the current writing project, also with Kate Adams.
Ilona Leki, Ph.D., University of Illinois, Professor
Email: leki@utk.edu
Ilona Leki directs the English department's English as a Second Language program. Her research interests focus on second language writing, academic literacy development among bilingual students, and the literacy experiences of English learners. She co-edits Journal of Second Language Writing (with Tony Silva) and is author of Academic Writing: Exploring Processes and Strategies (Cambridge) and Understanding ESL Writers: A Guide for Teachers (Boynton/Cook), editor of Academic writing programs: Case studies in TESOL practice (TESOL), and co-editor (with Joan Carson) of Reading in the Composition Classroom: Second Language Perspectives (Heinle & Heinle). Her most recent research project focused on a series of case studies of L2 English university students in their courses throughout their undergraduate education in the U.S. This research included interviews with the students and their teachers and observations of the students' classes across the curriculum. She is winner of 1996 TESOL/Newbury House Distinguished Research Award.
List of Selected Publications: Ilona Leki
Mary Jo Reiff, Ph.D., University of Kansas, Associate Professor
Email: mreiff@utk.edu
Mary Jo Reiff has published in the areas of audience, including an article in JAC and a recently published book, Approaches to Audience: An Overview of the Major Perspectives (Parlay Press, 2004), and in rhetorical genre theory, with a forthcoming reference guide (ed. by Charles Bazerman) entitled Genre: A Historical, Theoretical, and Pedagogical Introduction and a textbook entitled Scenes of Writing: Strategies for Composing with Genres (Longman, 2004). Her scholarly interviews and work on audience, genre, critical ethnography, and writing in the disciplines have appeared in journals such as College English, Issues in Writing, The WAC Journal, Composition Forum, and Writing on the Edge. She is currently at work on an article on the rhetoric of public petitions.