A Nineteenth-Century Exercise Book in Dramatic Poses

Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics Faculty

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The University of Tennessee

Matthew Abraham, Ph.D. Purdue University, Assistant Professor. Matthew Abraham's research interests include civic and political rhetoric, critical race theory, public intellectualism, the dynamics of contemporary intellectual controversy, and the economics of composition labor. His current project attempts to theorize a "rhetoric of resistance"—an intellectual style that challenges dominant cultural tendencies and forces that ensure intellectual conformism—while also addressing how public intellectuals can act as agents of social change. Drawing upon figures such as Edward W. Said and Lani Guinier, Professor Abraham examines how the incorporation of previously excluded groups' perspectives subjects public spaces to an interrogation of their founding conditions. Professor Abraham teaches courses in Rhetoric and Writing, Advanced Persuasive Writing, and is currently developing a course entitled "Rhetoric in the Public Sphere: Intellectuals, Writing, and Social Change." Professor Abraham’s publications have appeared in the Journal of Advanced Composition ("The Rhetoric of Academic Controversy after 9/11: Edward Said in the American Imagination," JAC 24 (2004): 113-142), Emergence ("What is Complexity Science? Toward the End of Ethics and Law Parading as Justice" Emergence 3.1 (2001): 169-184), and Postmodern Culture (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/toc/pmc10.2.html). His forthcoming work will appear in edited collections from Univ. of Illinois Press, Wayne State Univ. Press, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, and Lexington Books.

Janet M. Atwill, Ph.D. Purdue University, Professor, Ph.D. Purdue University, Professor. Janet M. Atwill's research areas are classical rhetoric, theories of civic discourse and identity, and critical theory, with special emphasis on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Her books include: The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition, edited with Richard Graff and Art Walzer. Buffalo: SUNY P, 2004; Perspectives on Rhetorical Invention, edited with Janice Lauer. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2002; Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition. Series in Rhetoric and Society. Ithaca & London: Cornell UP, 1998. She is presently completing New Civic Rhetorics: Classical Traditions and the Global Polis, under contract with SUNY Press. She currently serves as President of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric and in December 2004 was elected to the executive committee of the MLA Division on History and Theory of Rhetoric and Composition. She is on the editorial boards of Philosophy and Rhetoric and Advances in the History of Rhetoric and serves as a reader for a number of journals and university presses. She has co-authored two composition textbooks: Writing: A College Handbook, fifth edition, with James Heffernan and John Lincoln. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001 and Four Worlds of Writing: Inquiry and Action in Context, with Janice Lauer, Andrea Lunsford, et al. New York: Addison, Wesley, Longman, 2000.

Bethany K. Dumas, Ph.D. University of Arkansas; J.D., University of Tennessee, Professor. Bethany K. Dumas teaches, conducts research, and publishes on language variation, discourse analysis, and the role of language in the judicial process, especially jury instructions and product warnings. She often serves as a consultant or expert witness in legal cases and has done so since 1984. She also teaches CLE workshops for lawyers. Her academic teaching areas are Structure of Modern English, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Social & Regional Dialects of American English, Language & Law, Discourse Analysis, and Rhetoric of Legal Discourse. She is currently completing a book, Writing and Using Effective Jury Instructions, National Institute for Trial Advocacy (Notre Dame, 2005), and she will be completing two textbooks in 2005: Forensic Linguistics (Cambridge) and Varieties of American English (Blackwell). She is active in the Linguistics program (undergraduate major and minor and Graduate Certificate), which she has chaired several times in the past.

Jenn Fishman, Ph.D., Stanford University, Assistant Professor. Jenn Fishman researches writing, performance, and literacy in both historical and contemporary contexts. She has published essays on Restoration theater and the relationships between eighteenth-century texts and performances, and presently she is at work on a book-length manuscript, Active Literacy and English Disciplines, a project that examines historically the relationship between rhetoric, writing, and performance before the invention of modern English disciplines. Her current research in college composition includes, with colleague Mary Jo Reiff, a study of embodied literacies and first-year writing, and ongoing research with Andrea Lunsford and Erin Krampetz on the Stanford Study of Writing, a five-year longitudinal study of college composition.

Russel Hirst, Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Associate Professor. Currently director of the department’s program in technical communication, Russel Hirst 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, 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.

Michael L. Keene, Ph.D. University of Texas, Professor. Creator and former director of the concentration in technical communication, Michael L. Keene also teaches in the graduate program in Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics. His publications include thirteen books, in addition to numerous articles and chapters. His most recent publications are The Easy Access Handbook, fourth edition (with Kate Adams), McGraw-Hill 2005, Instant Access (McGraw-Hill, 2003, with Kate Adams) 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.) His current book-length projects include Alice Paul: A Rhetorical Biography, with Kate Adams.

Ilona Leki, Ph.D. University of Illinois, Professor. Ilona Leki directs the English department’s English as a Second Language program and is chair of the university’s Interdisciplinary Program in Linguistics. 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 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 the Jefferson Award and the 1996 TESOL/Newbury House Distinguished Research Award.

Mary Jo Reiff, Ph.D., University of Kansas, Associate Professor. 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 genre-based rhetoric 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 doing work on public discourse and is researching the evolution of the public petition (from the 17th century to the present).

Adjunct Faculty

Donald P. Lazere, Ph.D. Berkeley. Donald Lazere is professor emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and currently teaches at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: The Critical Citizen’s Guide to Argumentative Rhetoric (Paradigm Publishers, 2005) and The Unique Creation of Albert Camus (Yale University Press, 1973) and editor of American Media and Mass Culture: Left Perspectives (University of California Press, 1987). His scholarly articles have appeared in many book collections and in journals including New Literary History, College English, College Composition and Communication, Journal of Advanced Composition, Journal of Basic Writing, Journal of Communication, and American Quarterly. He has also published opinion columns and reviews in general circulation journals such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, The San Francisco Chronicle, Tikkun, The Nation, In These Times,and The Village Voice.