Dr. Spangler’s play, Albatross, will open at the Poet’s Theatre in Boston on February 13^th and run until March 1.  The play is based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and tells the story of a refugee-sailor forced to wander the earth for eternity. Dr. Spangler will visit classes at Boston University and Emerson College in connection to the performance.  http://www.poetstheatre.org/albatross/

Dr. Kathleen McConnell published her research in the latest issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly (2015, Vol 45, Issue 1).

Dr. McConnell’s article, “Imbalances and Inequities: the Structure of Inquiry and Its Place in Rhetorical Studies” revisits the concern that academic professionalism and the rise of criticism and theory have diminished rhetoric as a pragmatic art.

Dr. McConnell argues that the recent trend in higher education toward greater restrictions on academic inquiry poses new problems for rhetorical studies, particularly where those restrictions exacerbate existing educational inequities. In the effort to address those inequities, a distinction needs to be made between old concerns with inquiry and the new issues any reorganization of inquiry will present.

Dr. McConnell notes that the generic support for inquiry that universities provide benefits rhetorical studies by lending structure to inquiry processes fraught with uncertainty and marked by impermanency. That support allows for the kind of careful engagement with possibility that rhetorical invention requires. The 2009 documentary film Naturally Obsessed: The Making of a Scientist illustrates the value to inquiry of professional conventions and other forms of generic support. Those same conventions serve rhetorical studies in similar ways.

Congratulations Dr. McConnell!

A write up of Dr. Matthew Spangler’s book Staging Intercultural Ireland (co-edited with Charlotte McIvor) is featured on today’s Irish Times website. For more on Dr. Spangler’s book, see our previous blog post.

Dr. Anne Marie Todd received the Christine L. Oravec Research Award from the Environmental Communication Division of the National Communication Association. Presented at this year’s NCA conference, the award honors her book, Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement (Routledge, 2013). You can read more about the book here.

Dr. Spangler received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the Academic Affairs Division of SJSU’s Quarterback Club.  He was honored on the field Saturday, November 17 at the SJSU/Hawaii football game.

Congratulations Dr. Spangler!