The Institute for Writing & Rhetoric is pleased to welcome the following faculty:
Michelle CoxMichelle Cox comes to Dartmouth from Bridgewater State University, where she launched a Writing Across the Curriculum Program and taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate writing and writing studies courses. Cox's areas of interests include multilingual writers; she is in fact the college's new multi-lingual specialist. (For more about Cox and the multilingual work she will be doing for the Institute and the Graduate Studies programs, see here.) This year, Cox will be teaching Writing 5 for the Institute. Her course, "Writing Rhetorically," explores the dynamic interplay between writing and rhetoric. Students will read research drawn from Composition-Rhetoric, and will engage in a recursive process of writing, primary and secondary research, and peer review.
Jed Dobson is ABD in English at Indiana University. His dissertation, "The Awkward Age of Autobiography," examines American fin-de-siecle autobiography and its relation to questions of historiography. Dobson's interest in intellectual history focuses particularly on the transformation of disciplinary knowledge in the late nineteenth century. His Writing 5, "The University in the Popular Imagination," asks students to write several short papers responding to current articles on the state of higher education; subsequent papers will build on these shorter papers as students develop their positions via evidence-based claims.
Melissa HermanMelissa Herman is a sociologist whose areas of expertise include multiracial identity, adolescent development, and autobiography. Her scholarship explores society's attitudes toward multiracial people, as well as how observers' backgrounds influence their perception of multiracial faces. Her Writing 5, "Multi-Racial Identity," requires students to write prolifically, crafting weekly responses to a variety of readings, as well as producing two essays and one longer research paper.
Asia Rowe, currently ABD in English at the University of Connecticut, specializes in literature and intellectual history. Her foci include Renaissance literature, Shakespeare, the history of the book, and popular culture. Her Writing 5 reflects this span of interests: the course, "Shakespearean Adaptation," asks students to consider the various composing "moves" artists have made as they've adapted Shakespeare's plays to film. Over the course of the term, students will produce scholarly criticism in the form of four major papers, each of which will be re-written at least once and re-submitted in a final portfolio.
Bradley SekedatBradley Sekedat received his Ph.D. in Archaeology from Brown University in May. Sekedet's work focuses on Roman Asia Minor with particular interests in small-scale resource acquisition (such as stone extraction). He is intrigued by notions of how landscape, memory, and place form community within the context of empire. His Writing 5, "Uses and Misuses of the Past," invites students to write their way towards answers to complicated questions, such as Who owns the past? and Who are the experts and why should we believe them? In the process, students will learn how data are used to make claims and how strong arguments are formulated.
Lisa Lopez SnyderLisa Lopez Snyder comes to us from the University of South Carolina, where she received her MFA in Creative Writing, with a concentration in Fiction. Her area of interests include identity issues in fiction and non-fiction, and the exploration of narrative as a way to make sense of the human condition. Lisa was the recipient of The Chattahoochee Review 2011 Lamar York Prize for Nonfiction for her essay, "In Transit." Her essays and fiction have been featured in The Raleigh Review, The Scrambler and Foliate Oak. Her Writing 5, "Transcending Borders: Migration and Identity," asks students to write several formal and informal papers that explore the complexities of migration, displacement, and identity. As they do, students will come to understand writing as a recursive process in which they can practice the abilities necessary for critical reading, analytical writing, research, and revision.
