Education

Ph.D., English in Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Specialization

Cultural Rhetorics
Rhetorics of Public Memory, Space, and Materiality
Race and Ethnicity 
Gender Studies
Decolonial Pedagogies
Writing Centers
Composition 

Research

My current book project centers the way covert racism and nationalism shape public memory and ways of knowing civic identities both in 1960s South Carolina and today in the Trump era. In this archival study of SC's Tricentennial Commission's planning of Charles Towne Landing in Charleston as the crowning achievement of the Tricentennial Celebration in 1970, I trace the rhetorical processes that led the Commission to bulldoze Kiawah artifacts that contradicted their assumption that the park site was the first permanent location for what would become the city of Charleston and aligning itself with British nationalism as a way to disidentify with a desegrated U.S. Drawing from rhetorics of public memory and decolonialism, I interrogate the ways white nationalism have shaped public memory and, therefore, pedagogical discourses. Thus, I call into question concepts of rhetorical objectivity in public memory and suggest that decolonial pedagogies are the answer to uncovering  history and memories that are literally and metaphorically buried and that doing so is a cultural imperative in the age of Trump and the growing popularity of white nationalism in the West.

In addition to this book project, I am collecting data for my next book project investigating World War II memory in the South. New popular culture attention to the ways that women and people of color contributed to the war efforts during the second World War piqued my interest in how museums in the South negotiate representing discrimination during a war that most U.S. citizens revere.

Additionally, I have three chapters forthcoming in edited collections: “The Rhetoric of Classism and Reading Culture in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast” in FanPhenomena: Disney edited by Priscilla Hobbs and currently under peer review; “Expanding Pedagogies: The Productive Tensions of ePortfolio Pedagogies and Peer Consultant Specialist in the Twenty-first Center Writing Center" in MaryAnn Dellinger and Alexis Hart's ePortfolios @edu. What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and Everything in Between published through WAC Clearinghouse, and “A Writing Center’s Place is in the #Resistance: Decolonizing Writing Center Administration” in Decolonial Possibilities: Indigenously-Rooted Practices in Rhetoric and Writing edited by Andrea Riley Mukavetz, Resa Crane Bizzaro, and Lisa King for the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Studies in Writing and Rhetoric (SWR). In addition to my contributions to edited collected, I co-edited and contributed a chapter,“Performing the Capitol in Fan Culture: An Analysis of Fandom in Social Media as the Panopticon” to Space and Place in the Hunger Games: New Readings of the Novels with Whitney Elaine Jones and Julie Elizabeth Tyler through McFarland Press in 2013. Finally, I am revising an article “(Mis)Representing the Dead: A Rhetorical Analysis of Politically-Correct Language and Racial Erasure at Charles Towne Landing,” in which I interrogate how language and competing memorials obscure a mass grave of enslaved people. This research examines the way representation in the twenty-first century uses coded language to perpetuate an erasure I uncovered in previous research. I challenge memory studies, rhetorical studies, and park systems to strive toward improved representation.

Publications

Forthcoming 
   • “Expanding Pedagogies: The Productive Tensions of ePortfolio Pedagogies and Peer  Consultant Specialist in the Twenty-first Center Writing Center.” ePortfolios @edu. What We Know, What We Don’t  Know, and Everything in Between. Eds. MaryAnn Dellinger and Alexis Hart. WAC Clearinghouse.
   • “(Mis)representing the Dead: Politically-Correct Narrative Signage as Coded Racism and Disidentification in Charleston, SC.” Revise and resubmit at enculturation: a journal of rhetoric, writing, and culture. 
   • “The Rhetoric of Classism and Reading Culture in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.” Fan Phenomena: Disney. Ed. Priscilla Hobbs. Intellect Books. 
   • “A Writing Center’s Place is in the #Resistance: Decolonizing Writing Center Administration.” Decolonial Possibilities: Indigenously-Rooted Practices in Rhetoric and Writing. Eds. Andrea Riley Mukavetz, Resa Crane Bizzaro, and Lisa King. Conference on College Composition and Communication's Studies in Writing and Rhetoric.

In Progress
   • Building the Rhetorical South at Charles Towne Landing, 1966-1971: Identification as Defensive and Antagonistic Strategies

Books
   • Space and Place in The Hunger Games: New Readings of the Novels. Edited by Deidre Anne Evans Garriott, Whitney Elaine Jones, and Julie Elizabeth Tyler. McFarland P., 2014.
   • Rhetoric of Inquiry. 3rd ed. Edited by Kirsten Benson, Sean Barnett, Deidre Garriott, and Meredith Gentry. U. of Tennessee P., 2012.

Book Chapters
   • “Performing the Capitol in Fan Culture: An Analysis of Fandom in Social Media as the Panopticon.” Space and Place in The Hunger Games: New Readings of the  Novels. Edited by Deidre Anne Evans Garriott, Whitney Elaine Jones, and Julie  Elizabeth Tyler. McFarland P., 2014, pp. 160-183.

Selected Conference Presentations
   • “Unapologetic: How Makeup, Hair Color, and Tattoos Fight the Patriarchy and Create Community in the Academy.” with Elena Garcia, Katrina Bell, and Nicole Emmelhainz. Feminisms and Rhetoric 2019. Harrisonburg, VA. November 13-16, 2019.
   • “A Writing Center’s Place Is In the #Resistance: Committing to Social Justice Pedagogy to Reform Praxis and Identity.” CCCC. Pittsburgh, PA. March 13-19, 2019.
   • “It's a Mad, Mad World: Participant Pedagogies in an Age of Protest.” Cultural Rhetorics Conference. East Lansing, MI. November 15-17, 2018.
   • “When Institutional and Disciplinary Cultures Clash: The Challenges of Supporting Social Justice as Pre-Tenure and Non-Tenure Track Writing Center Administrators." International Writing Centers Association. Atlanta, GA. October 10-13, 2018.
   • “The Writing Center as Counter-Culture in Military Environments: Cultural Production and Flexibility as Practice, Pedagogy, and Identity.” Southeastern Writing Centers Association. Richmond, VA. February 22-24, 2018.
   • “Sleuthing and Code-Breaking in Tutor Recruitment and Interview Practices.” International Writing Centers Association Chicago. November 10-13, 2017.
   • “The Rhetoric of Classism and Reading Culture in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association 2017 Annual Conference. San Diego, CA. April 12-16, 2017.
   • “Training a Multimodal, Multiliterate Peer Staff: How ePortfolio Training in the Writing Center Promoted Digital Literacy Writing Center Pedagogies.” Southeastern Writing Centers Association. Oxford, MS. 16-18 February 2017.
   • “Competing Memories and Space at the Virginia Military Institute: the Civil War versus World War II.” Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) 2016 Biennial Conference. Atlanta, GA. May 26-29, 2016.