Research Projects Completed and in the Works

The Basics:

History: I focus my research in two general areas: The first falls into a category called public memory studies, which is the study of how groups, institutions, and nations remember certain events or people. Examples include how cultures remember the Holocaust, WWII, or Vietnam. My work focuses specifically on African American public memory. I analyze vis ual and written texts that remember particular African Americans, such as Malcolm X, or whole institutions, like slavery, in politically charged ways. In this research I’m often attempting to understand how representations of African American history influence contemporary politics. Towards that end, my current book project focuses on the history of the slavery reparations debate and the implications of that debate for race relations in the United States.

            Beyond the politics of public memory, I also do research on the political impact of science and mathematics. Since obtaining my bachelors degree in mathematics at Willamette University, I have written and published research in the history and philosophy of mathematics. Here I am especially interested in how math and science, which are often thought to operate outside the realm of politics, become political. I’ve done research, for example, on the history of the Calculus and the invention of infinitesimals; I’ve studied and written about the Parthenon, a famous Greek monument that marks an intersection between religion, politics, and ancient Pythagorean mathematics; and I’ve analyzed the “mathematician identity” as constructed within the discourse and language of mathematics. In each case, I’m interested in understanding mathematics as a filter for the world that has serious implications for how we understand ourselves and our environment.

Scholarly Interests: Public Memory, Philosophy and Rhetoric of Science, Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, Political Communication and Campaign Advertising, Critical Cultural Studies and Continental Philosophy.

Education: B.S. Willamette University, 1997, major in mathematics; M.A. The Pennsylvania State University, 2000, Communication Arts and Sciences; Ph. D. The Pennsylvania State University, 2004, Communication Arts and Sciences.

Professional Affiliations: Director for Center for Public Memory and Ethnic Studies, Professional Journal Reviewer for Communication Education, and professional affiliations with National Communication Association, Rhetoric Society of America, Western Communication Association, WSCA Rhetoric and Public Address Division, American Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology (AARST), NCA Kenneth Burke Division, American School for Classical Studies in Athens, Southern Communication Association, Eastern Communication Association, Central States Communication Association.

Publications: I’ve published my research in many of the quarterly journals for academic research in communication studies, including Rhetoric Review, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and The International Journal of the Humanities.