This public program focused on the textual dynamics and social consequences of rhetoric on discussions and understandings of science. Panelists explored the ways in which rhetoric about science circulates culturally and influences broader public discussions about science, journalism, and politics.
Reception: 5:30-6:30 PM
Program: 6:30-8:00 PM
Co-Sponsor: University of Colorado Denver, Department of Communication
Moderator
Bonnie J. Dow, Ph.D.
Bonnie J. Dow is Dean of Humanities in the College of Arts & Science and Professor of Communication Studies at Vanderbilt University. Dow is a rhetorical and public address scholar whose research interests include the rhetoric and representation of the first and second waves of feminism in the United States. She holds a B.A. from Baylor University, an M.A. from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Watching Women’s Liberation, 1970: Feminism’s Pivotal Year on the Network News (University of Illinois Press, 2014) and Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement Since 1970 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). She is co-editor (with Julia T. Wood) of The Sage Handbook of Gender and Communication (2006) and a co-editor of The Aunt Lute Anthology of U.S. Women Writers, Volume One: 17th –19th Centuries (Aunt Lute Books, 2004).
Panelists
Leah Ceccarelli, Ph.D.
Leah Ceccarelli is a Professor in the Department of Communication and Director of the Interdisciplinary Science, Technology, and Society Studies Graduate Certificate Program at the University of Washington. Her research specialty is the rhetoric of science. She is a recipient of NCA’s Douglas W. Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar Award, and several other research awards for two of her articles and each of her two books, Shaping Science with Rhetoric and On the Frontier of Science. She co-edits a book series on Transdisciplinary Rhetoric sponsored by the Rhetoric Society of America and Penn State University Press.
Celeste Condit, Ph.D.
Celeste Condit is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Georgia. Her research on public communication about genetics has been funded by the NIH and the CDC. Her books include The Meanings of the Gene (University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), and, most recently, Angry Public Rhetoric (University of Michigan, 2018). She is currently exploring the role of emotion in public discourse, with the aspiration to contribute insights that will better enable the billions of humans on the planet to adapt their biologically and discursively formed predispositions to each other in the contemporary, necessarily shared environment.
Robin E. Jensen, Ph.D.
Robin E. Jensen is Professor of Communication at the University of Utah. She studies historical and contemporary discourses concerning science, health, sex, and gender. Her current research trajectory is dedicated to exploring the emergence, uses, and evolutions of chemical rhetoric among diverse disciplinary and lay communities in and over time. She is the author of Infertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term (The Penn State University Press, 2016) and Dirty Words: The Rhetoric of Public Sex Education, 1870-1924 (University of Illinois Press, 2010).
Lisa Keränen, Ph.D.
Lisa Keränen is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research examines health rhetorics, biopolitics, and biosecurity, appearing in journals such as Academic Medicine, Argumentation & Advocacy, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and Quarterly Journal of Speech. Her books include the award-winning Scientific Characters: Rhetoric Politics and Trust in Breast Cancer Research and the co-edited Imagining China: Rhetorics of Nationalism in an Age of Globalization. She is a past president of the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine.
John Lynch, Ph.D.
John Lynch is a Professor of Communication at the University of Cincinnati. His scholarship addresses the rhetorical and ethical aspects of biomedical technology. His work on public engagement with genetics has been supported by several NIH grants. His book, What are Stem Cells? Definition at the Intersection of Science and Politics (University of Alabama Press, 2011), received the 2016 Distinguished Book Award from the National Communication Association’s Health Communication Division. His work has also appeared in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Health Communication, Science Communication, and the Journal of Pediatrics.
J. Blake Scott, Ph.D.
J. Blake Scott is Professor of Writing & Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida and co-editor of the journal Rhetoric of Health & Medicine. A number of his books, book chapters, and journal articles focus on U.S. and transnational public health policy, including HIV/AIDS testing and prevention, and pharmaceutical regulation and access. His scholarship has won four national research awards, including the NCA Health Communication Division’s Distinguished Book Award for Risky Rhetoric: AIDS and the Cultural Practices of HIV Testing.
Co-Sponsors
