Curriculum Vitae
Office: Department of English, St. Louis University, 3800 Lindell Blvd., 222 Adorjan Hall, St. Louis, MO 63108
Email: nrivers1@slu.edu
CV Quick Links
education | academic appointments | areas of interest | publications | conference presentations | invited lectures | local presentations | awards and honors | teaching | university service and curriculum development | editorial experience | professional memberships
Education
Ph.D. English
Purdue University (August 2009)
West Lafayette, IN
- Primary Area: Rhetoric and Composition
Secondary Areas: Professional and Technical Writing, Public Rhetorics, and Writing Program Administration
Dissertation: Cultivating Rhetorics: Exploring and Exploiting the Emergent Boundaries of Human Nature and Culture
Committee: Thomas Rickert, chair; Samantha Blackmon, David Blakesley, and Patricia Sullivan
M.A. English
Purdue University (May 2005)
West Lafayette, IN
- Emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition
B.A. English
B.A. Psychology
University of Southern Indiana (May 2003)
Evansville, IN
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Magna Cum Laude
Finalist for President’s Medal
Capstone Project: The Seinfeld Finale: The Function and Risk of Comedy
Academic Appointments
Saint Louis University, Assistant Professor of English (2011 - Present)
Georgetown University, Assistant Professor of English (2009 - 2011)
Purdue University, Graduate Instructor in English (2003 - 2009)
Areas of Interest
Rhetorical Theory, Technical Writing, New Media, History of Rhetoric, Public Rhetorics, Composition Pedagogy, Philosophy of Mind, Neuroscience and Humanities
Publications
Books
Literature as Equipment for Living: The Literary Reviews of Kenneth Burke. Co-edited with Ryan Weber. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2010.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
"Future Convergences: Technical Communication Research as Cognitive Science." Technical Communication Quarterly 20.4 (2011): 412-442. Special 20th Anniversary Issue.
“Ecological, Pedagogical Public Rhetoric.” Co-authored with Ryan Weber. Accepted for publication in College Composition and Communication December 2011.
"Productive Strife: Andy Clark’s Cognitive Science and Rhetorical Agonism." Co-authored with Jeremy Tirrell. Janus Head 12.1 (2011): 39-59.
"In Defense of Gut Feelings: Rhetorics of Decision-Making." Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society 1.2 (2011).
"Some Assembly Required: The Latourian Collective and the Banal Work of Technical and Professional Communication." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 38.3 (2008): 189-206 [lead article]. Nominated for a NCTE Scientific and Technical Communication Award.
"First-Year Composition Takes the University’s Agonism Online." Kairos 13.2 (2009): Praxis Section. (Co-authored with Marc C. Santos and Ryan P. Weber).
Book Chapters
“Rhetorics of (Non)Symbolic Cultivation.” In Ecology, Writing Theory, and New Media: Writing Ecology. Ed. Sid Dobrin. Routledge Series in Rhetoric and Communication (December 2011).
Conference Proceedings
"I Told U So! Classical and Contemporary Ethos and the Stabilization of Self." The Responsibilities of Rhetoric: Proceedings of the 2008 Rhetoric Society of America Conference. Eds. Michelle Smith and Barbara Warnick. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2010. 281-288.
Reviews
Review of Bodily Arts: Kenneth Burke at the Edges of Language, by Debra Hawhee. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 13.3 (2010): 519-522.
"The Muddled Emotions of Muggles." Rev. of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling. Sycamore Review 18.1 (Winter & Spring 2005): 101-103.
Works in Progress
Book, Cultivating Rhetorics: Embodiment, Emplacement, and Extended Minds. (in progress, five chapters and an introduction).
Article, “In the Material: Towards Rhetorics of Cultivation.” (revise and resubmit, 41 pp).
Article, "Ecologies of Deception: Psychology, Rhetoric, and Agency." Co-authored with Maarten Derksen (Under review, 10,000 words).
Awards and Honors
Nominated by students at Georgetown College for Excellence in Teaching (2010)
Summer Academic Grant, Georgetown University for $9,500 (2010)
Crouse Emergent Scholar Scholarship in Professional Writing for $5,000 (2008-2009)
Purdue Research Foundation Grants for Dissertation Writing for $2,500 (Summer 2008 and Summer 2009)
Named Emerging Burke Scholar by Kenneth Burke Society (2006)
Conference Presentations
“Action Constituting Motion: Revisiting Burke to Revive Ecology.” 8th Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society. Clemson University. May 2011.
“’The iPhone is Part of My Mind Already’: Rhetoric and the Cultivation of Body and Mind.” Conference on College Communication and Composition. Atlanta, GA. 2011.
“The Distributed Wisdom of Students.” Computers and Writing Conference. Purdue University. 2010.
“Institutional Critique as Technical Writing Pedagogy.” The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference. Louisville, KY. 2010.
“Attitude, Anthropology, and Appetite: The Material Relevance of Rhetoric.” 7th Triennial Kenneth Burke Society Conference. Villanova University. 2008.
“I told U So! Classical and Contemporary Ethos and the Stabilization of Self.” Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America. Seattle, WA. 2008.
“Writing Historical Reality: Jamestown and the Shaping of Environment through the Expectations of Culture.” Conference on College Communication and Composition. New Orleans, LA. 2008.
“Technical Communication and the Articulation of Science and Politics.” Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. New Orleans, LA. 2008.
“Productive Strife: Andy Clark’s Cognitive Science and Rhetorical Agonism.” Presented with Jeremy Tirrell. From Brain to Human Culture: Intersections Between the Humanities and Neuroscience. Bucknell University. 2007.
“Virtual Space/Real People: Using Digital Environments to Connect First-Year Composition Classrooms and Foster New Rhetorical Encounters.” Presented with Marc C. Santos and Ryan P. Weber. Computers and Writing Conference. Wayne State University. 2007.
“We Are a Cyborg: Extensions of the Cybernetic into the Semiotic.” American Semiotics Society. Purdue University. 2006.
“A Child’s Guide to Terrorism: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as Equipment for Living.” Popular Culture Association. Atlanta, GA. 2006.
“Kenneth Burke’s Literary Reviews Rephrased: Examining the Influence of His Literary Reviews on His Larger Works.” Triennial Kenneth Burke Society Conference. Penn State University. 2005.
“Just the Facts?: A Rhetorical Look at a Victorian Cautionary Tale.” Conference on College Communication and Composition. San Francisco, CA. 2005.
“’Rising or Falling:’ A Logological Look at the Theological Disputes in Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Michigan College English Association. Michigan State University. 2005.
“Kenneth Burke and George Schuyler on Race: The Trained Incapacity of Scapegoating.” College English Association. Indianapolis, IN. 2005.
“Fact as Fancy: A Cautionary Victorian Tale.” Michigan College English Association. Western Michigan University. 2004.
Invited Lectures and Workshops
"Rhetoric and New Media." Georgetown University. Approaches to the Teaching of Writing (graduate seminar). November 2010.
“The Question Concerning Writing.” Georgetown University. Approaches to the Teaching of Writing (graduate seminar). November 2009.
“Tutoring Technical Writing.” Purdue University Writing Lab. 2007.
Email Ethics Lecture and Workshop for Krannert School of Management Professional Development Workshop Series (in conjunction with Purdue Writing Lab). Materials available online (ppt). Presentation adopted by numerous organizations including the South Brunswick School District and Sashun Chemicals, an India-based pharmaceutical company. Purdue University. 2006 and 2007.
Lecture and workshop on design notebooks, project charters, and travel writing for students in Purdue's Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program. In conjunction with Purdue Writing Lab. Materials available online. Purdue University. 2007.
Book Response Presentation on Spectral Nationality. Globalization and Resistance Conference. Purdue University. 2006.
Local Presentations
“Critical Thinking, Institutional Critique, and Rhetoric and Writing Pedagogy.” First Monday Faculty Presentation. Georgetown University, Department of English. 2010
“Institutional Critique as Professional Writing Pedagogy.” Professional Writing Pedagogy and Technology Showcase. Purdue University. 2007.
“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Pedagogical Implications of Content Management Systems Across Four First-Year Writing Classrooms.” Presented with Paul Lynch, Marc C. Santos, and Ryan P. Weber. Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference. Purdue University. 2007.
“Code in Context: An English 420 (Business Writing) HTML Calendar and Implementation Documentation.” Presented with Marc C. Santos and Ryan P. Weber. Professional Writing Pedagogy and Technology Showcase. Purdue University. 2005.
Teaching
Georgetown University
Department of English (2009 – Present)
ENGL 736: Rhetoric, Technology, and Culture
Spring 2011, Graduate Seminar
- The ubiquity of electronic communication and the evolution of new media technologies (e.g., Facebook, Wikipedia, and online games) need no introduction. Our public and private lives are increasingly lived across electronic networks. Wireless technologies and portable smart devices have only accelerated this migration. The move toward networks of new media, which has been scrutinized from a number of critical perspectives, has been deeply felt in the areas of rhetoric and writing. Both fields have devoted significant intellectual energy exploring the implications and promises of technology: what is its impact on the composition and distribution of texts, on the work of persuasion and identification, and on the cultivation of ethos and identity? New technologies provide fresh ways of understanding the ancient art of rhetoric, which this course, borrowing from George Kennedy, defines as “the energy inherent in emotion and thought, transmitted through a system of signs, including language, to others to influence their decisions or actions.” This definition will likely evolve over the course of the semester.
Merging form and content, students in this course use (or perform) new media technologies to theorize rhetoric, technology, and culture. For instance, students collaborate online with graduate students at another university, and they are encouraged to incorporate their own wireless and smart device technologies (e.g., laptops, iPhones, and iPads) into the classroom. Students also produce weekly reading responses as audio (or video) podcasts. Class time is devoted to traditional discussions but also to engagements with or performances of new media technologies (e.g. workshops, demonstrations, and tutorials). Students likewise develop a research program, which includes a book review of a relevant text, a conference proposal, and a conference paper/presentation. In addition to developing a theoretically robust response to rhetoric, technology, and culture, it is hoped that students leave the course prepared to integrate technology into their research and teaching.
Students with a variety of academic and research interests are encouraged to enroll, as are students with varying comfort levels with new media technology. This course hopes to generate a diverse set of critical rhetorical practices and responses to technology: a diverse student population is crucial.
Spring 2011, Critical Methods Course
- Our public and private lives are increasingly lived across electronic networks. Wireless technologies and portable smart devices have only accelerated this development. ENGL 043 explores such questions as: what is the impact of new media technologies on the composition and distribution of texts, on the work of persuasion and identification, and on the cultivation of ethos and identity? These are central questions for the critical methodology of rhetoric, which this course, borrowing from George Kennedy, defines as “the energy inherent in emotion and thought, transmitted through a system of signs, including language, to others to influence their decisions or actions.” Merging form and content, students in this course use new media technologies (e.g., Facebook, Wikipedia, and online games) to write frequently (and in a variety of ways) about rhetoric, technology and culture. For instance, students are encouraged to incorporate their own wireless and smart device technologies (e.g., laptops, iPhones, and iPads) into the classroom. Students also collaborate online through social networking sites. Audio (or video) podcasts take the place of weekly writing assignments and exams. Class time is devoted to traditional discussions but also to engagements with new media technologies (e.g. workshops, demonstrations, and tutorials). Students likewise develop a research project, which can take a variety of forms utilizing new media technologies.
Students with a variety of academic and research interests are encouraged to enroll, as are students with varying comfort levels with new media technology. This course hopes to generate a diverse set of critical practices and responses to technology: a diverse student population is therefore crucial.
Fall 2010
- Communicating with and within organizations is a crucial component of professional life no matter what shape that life takes or what directions that life moves in. Organizational rhetoric and writing can be defined as communication that motivates and structures values and behaviors within an organizational setting.
Organizational Rhetoric and Writing introduces students to the field of professional communication through a sustained engagement with its practices and principles. Students produce a variety of documents (across genres and media) in terms of and in the context of key theoretical understandings of that work, namely: rhetorical theory, ethics, and document design. As future professional communicators, students will continually be required to analyze (that is, theorize) audiences, activities, organizations, and contexts. Importantly, for students with a range of professional and personal aspirations, this course defines “organizations” broadly, including but not limited to: non-profits, NGOs, businesses, advocacy groups, political action committees, philanthropic organizations, and institutions of higher learning. Broadly speaking, we spend the semester considering the question of how do we go about creating, maintaining, sustaining, growing, and reshaping organizations. How do we design (as in a blueprint) and then build an organization?
Fall 2010
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Course Theme: ZOMBIES! As a popular figure in graphic novels, video games, books, and films, the Zombie proves a meaty source for conversations about many contemporary issues such as: language, society, individuality, gender, race, ideology, science, religion, law, and persuasion. For instance, what fears about society and ideology are expressed in zombie fiction? Are we consumed by the fear of becoming (part of) a vast, undead society where the individual ceases to exist? Conversely, does the prospect of law and order so easily collapsing in the face of a zombie apocalypse reorient us to society in more appetizing ways? What do zombies, who persuade us to become them by literally consuming us, have to say about persuasion and identification? This class fleshes out these issues and concerns by engaging various texts of the undead (e.g., 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War). Chewing on zombies in films and books, students in this writing intensive colloquium discuss and analyze (through in-class and online discussions as well as in writing), and, perhaps, enact and perform the figure of the zombie as one way contemporary society deals with (or digests) itself.
Spring 2010, Graduate Seminar
- This course starts with the assumption that,
"the rhetorical agent or political subject of [...] a moment doesn't precede the moment a priori, but is rather called into being within the moment - and thus the citizen and the political body [...] exists rhetorically in a rhetorical moment as a rhetorical trope or figuration." (Michelle Ballif, "Writing the Third Sophistic" 55)As Ballif argues, and as many contemporary cognitive scientists testify to, this calling into being can be a fully rhetorical endeavor (or, at least, an endeavor that rhetoric takes part in) if the ends of rhetoric are terministically extended to include our biological and environmental dramas in addition to our social ones. Recent cognitive, biological, and environmental science allows us to do just that: to persuasively regain for rhetoric its creative and cultivating force in the lives of individuals and groups and to informatively re-place rhetoric in the social, biological, and environmental contexts out of which individuals emerge. We should not enact rhetorical practice as merely the subjectification of individuals, but the many, sometimes agonistic, ways in which selves are cultivated within the interplay of social, biological, and environmental dramas (as a (re)figuration). Without remaking the rational subject, without reifying the "real," and without falling back on ancient dualisms and modern monisms, this course proposes that we navigate and negotiate the boundaries between the social, the biological, and the environmental, and, in doing so, reconsider the alternative shapes rhetoric takes and the work rhetoric accomplishes.
Fall 2009
- Course Theme: Situating the University. Focusing on and through the rhetorical tradition, elements of persuasion, and the practices of academic writing and research, this course examines the history and multiple traditions of the modern American university. That is, students are invited to examine the purpose of a university education (i.e. “Why am I here?”) and the range of university models and missions in their broadest historical and cultural contexts (i.e., "Where did Georgetown come from?"). This engagement includes reading philosophical discourses about the nature of knowledge and the goals of education, reviewing ethnographic research on student life, and analyzing contemporary debates concerning academic freedom, university life, and the place of politics in the classroom. In addition to these course readings, students have the opportunity to produce a variety of texts across a spectrum of styles, media, and topics. Ranging from forums, position papers, and multimedia compositions, students in this writing intensive course research and compose individually and collaboratively on a variety of issues related to the university. The ultimate goal of this colloquium-style course is for students to work together in formulating, asking, debating, and deciding upon the questions and purposes of a university education.
Purdue University
Department of English (2003 – Present)
English 505M: Practicum for Teaching Professional Writing
Fall 2007, Spring 2008
Associate Instructor with David Blakesley
- As a teaching practicum, this course introduces new instructors to the professional and technical writing program at Purdue and prepares them to instruct a diverse population of advanced undergraduates. Addressing both theoretical and practical issues, new instructors are taught how to use course technologies common to professional writing classrooms, how to evaluate student work and offer productive feedback, and how to connect the rhetorical theory that informs the course with the world outside of the course. Duties include discussing course projects, providing and evaluating sample work, and informal mentoring throughout the semester (these duties also coincided with my position as Assistant Director of the Rrofessional Writing Program).
Fall 2003 – Fall 2006, Fall 2008
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Emphasizing effective communication as vital to public life, this course introduces students to rhetorical principles such as ethos and kairos. In each version of the course, I stress online engagement, assign complex readings, and develop sophisticated projects. In exploring alternative ways to engage students with rhetorically sophisticated communication, I have developed or co-developed several different syllabi. One (co-developed with Paul Lynch, Marc Santos, an Ryan Weber) focused on the purposes of an education and had students read and discuss (in an online forum organized around discrete forum roles) a variety of arguments about education (from Plato to Martha Nussbaum). Another syllabus (co-developed with Ryan Weber) has students analyze public rhetorics such as the Civil Rights Movement and then enact their own ten-week, multi-genre public rhetoric campaign around a campus issue. Both syllabi stress engagement with multiple audiences through complex projects.
Spring 2008
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This course introduces undergraduate majors in professional writing to professional writing theory and practice as well as the professional writing program itself. In a version of the course I developed, students were provided two key metaphors through which they could understand their work: professional writing is mapping and professional writing is choice architecture. Mapping is presented as the purposeful selection, arrangement, and presentation of information in a usable, primarily visual format for a specific audience. It is an active and creative process, and not merely the passive conveyance of data. Choice architecture is positioned as the rhetorical (understood both symbolically and materially) structuring of environments and technologies to promote or prescribe certain actions, decisions, or behaviors. Projects include data mapping and an ethnographic research project on a working professional writer. This course prepares majors for the variety of courses available in Purdue’s professional writing program (e.g., multimedia writing, desktop publishing, technical writing, research).
Fall 2005, Summer 2006, Fall 2007
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Populated by advanced undergraduates from a variety of majors (e.g., management, agriculture, and the liberal arts), this course introduces the principles and practices of successful and ethical business communication. Students compose employment documents, white papers, and a service learning project for a community or campus organization. In one version of the course, students created a series of documents in proposing change at an institution with which they were affiliated. Students composed a personal note designed to garner support, a formal, research-driven proposal that articulated the change requested, and a follow-up memo designed to address audience concerns and secure support. All projects in this course stress both the quantity and quality of writing expected in the professional world as well as collaboration and audience awareness.
Spring 2007, Summer 2007, Spring 2009
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Designed for advanced undergraduates from a variety of majors within the sciences and engineering, this course engages students with the principles and practices of user-centered technical communication. Students compose instructions for audiences of differing levels of experience and expertise, employment documents, and white papers and proposals for lawmakers and policymakers. Stressing accessibility in writing and design, this course promotes analysis of audience needs, values, and expectations, and an understanding of how documents cultivate audiences as users of technology. What many students assume to be a simple task of communicating knowledge is actually a complex and sophisticated attempt to shape the actions and attitudes of users.
Fall 2006-Spring 2007
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I worked with both native and non-native students employing a non-directive, student-centered approach to tutoring writing. Working in the writing lab as a graduate tutor, I assisted a variety of students composing a diverse array of documents: freshman writers with composition assignments, advanced undergraduates with employment documents and graduate school applications, and graduate students with theses and dissertations. Additionally, I contributed to Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL), creating materials on email ethics and writing in engineering
University Service and Curriculum Development
Advisor, Graduate Student Theses
Spring 2010 - Present
Member, Hiring Committee for Position in 20th Century American Liturature and Culture
Fall 2010 - Present
Member, Advisory Committee on Business Practices
Fall 2010 - Present
Appointed by Faculty Senate
Member, Technology Committee, Department of English
Fall 2010 - Present
Co-Principle Investigator, Thresholds of Writing Project, Georgetown University
Summer 2009 – Present
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A three-year project focused on writing within the disciplines in the first year through the major; in collaboration with faculty campus wide.
Assistant Director of Professional Writing Program, Purdue University
Fall 2007 – Present
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As assistant director, my primary duties included curriculum development, staff development, and general administrative duties. In 2007 I coordinated the Professional Writing Pedagogy and Technology Showcase, a forum for student and instructor work. This event serves to develop both professional writing curriculum and staff. Students and instructors create poster presentations, and instructors also offer pedagogy presentations. The showcase is program wide, but also works to inform the larger university community of the work our program does. In the spring of 2008 I observed and evaluated all instructors in the professional writing program as part of our yearly self-assessment, and planned the 2008 Pedagogy and Technology Showcase.
Spring 2006
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As a committee, we reviewed and revised course descriptions and goals for three core service courses: business, technical, and multimedia writing. In concert with these revisions, we also updated the program’s list of required and recommended textbooks.
Spring 2007
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As a team of experienced instructors, we compiled and arranged instructor-created conferencing materials and advice in an accessible, hard copy manual. This manual was prepared in conjunction with the Conferencing Sub-Committee of the Introductory Writing Committee and was distributed to new instructors. For this work, I was awarded a Quintilian Award for Excellence as an Instructor in the Introductory Composition at Purdue Program.
Editorial Experience
Kenneth Burke Journal Co-Editor
Summer 2011 - Present
Parlor Press Reviewer
Fall 2007 – Present
Reviewed manuscripts submitted to Parlor Press and offered feedback to authors. I reviewed Scott L. Newstok’s Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare.
Kenneth Burke Journal Online Editor
Summer 2008 – 2011
Along with co-editor Ryan Weber, I prepare articles for publication online. Additionally, I develop new content, update memberships, and generally troubleshoot for issues with the site.
The Space Between Special Issue Editor
Fall 2008
Reviewed manuscripts submitted for inclusion in David Tietge’s special issue on Kenneth Burke for the journal The Space Between.
Other Professional Experience
Educational Testing Services, Reader for Advance Placement Exam
2006 – Present
Professional Memberships
Rhetoric Society of America
Association of Teachers of Technical Writing
National Council of Teachers of English
Modern Language Association
Kenneth Burke Society
College English Association
Jesuit Conference on Rhetoric and Composition
Ivy Plus Writing Consortium