Hosted by the Sweetland Center for Writing, the Digital Rhetoric Collaborative (DRC) is an online, community webspace by and for scholars and teachers working in computers and writing and digital rhetoric. It is also the home of an open access book series with the University of Michigan Press.
Announcing New DRC Board Members
This year, we’ve welcomed four new members to the DRC Advisory Board: Janine Butler (Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technical Institute for the Deaf), Nupoor Ranade (Carnegie Mellon University), Jason Tham (Texas Tech University), and Ja’La Wourman (Howard University)! We’re thrilled to introduce these new members along with our current board: Antonio Byrd (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Douglas Eyman (George Mason University), Laura Gonzales (University of Florida), Derek Mueller (Virginia Tech), and Jentery Sayers (University of Victoria). Visit the Advisory Board Members page on our website to learn more about all of them!
Welcome to the 2024-2025 DRC Graduate Fellows
This past fall, the DRC welcomed its twelfth cohort of graduate student Fellows. The program aims to recognize graduate students around the country currently working in digital rhetoric who want practical experience in online publishing and website development. Fellows are selected on a yearly basis by the editors and board of the DRC and receive an annual stipend of $1000 as well as recognition on the DRC website.
DRC Fellows commit to attending monthly online team meetings to plan projects that extend the DRC website and its contributions to the community of scholars interested in computers and writing. They work independently and collaboratively to complete two projects within the year of their term.
Last year’s fellows expanded our website with exciting new content:
Saraubh Ahnand and Sarah Fischer curated the 22nd Blog Carnival, “Digital Literacy, Multimodality, and the Writing Center,” which features seven writers reflecting on how digital technologies are reshaping writing center practices and research. Their posts invited readers to rethink writing center epistemologies and the field’s future.
New Teaching and Learning Materials on Writing for Social Media were added, thanks to Sarah Fischer. These materials include activities such as social media storytelling, multimodal debates, and textual analysis, offering educators creative ways to teach digital literacy.
Additionally, Alex Mashny and Anuj Gupta updated the Syllabus Repository, adding syllabi on AI in composition, digital rhetoric, and technical communication. These resources help instructors integrate AI into their teaching.
Our fellows also contributed several featured posts. Anuj Gupta interviewed Dr. Julie Christen, a Learning Experience Designer at Amazon Web Services, about applying rhetoric and composition skills in industry. Alexandra Krasova shared her post, “Promoting Global Understanding and Multicultural Communication Through Arts-Based Research in ESL Classrooms,” which highlights students’ digital storytelling projects. Finally, Luke Hernandez analyzed the video game Pentiment in “Digital Pedagogy and Pentiment (2022): Playing with Critical Art History,” exploring its depiction of race, class, and gender.
Keep your eyes open for upcoming projects from our new fellows, including a blog carnival on the current state of circulation studies in digital rhetoric, featured posts on fellowship and grant writing and on postphenomenology in digital rhetoric, as well as new podcast episodes on digital rhetoric connections to industry. It looks to be an inspiring year of collaboration and innovation with our 2024-2025 DRC Fellows!
The 2024-2025 fellows are:
Thais Rodrigues Cons is a PhD researcher in Rhetoric, Composition & the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona. With a Master’s in Applied Linguistics and extensive experience in teaching English as an Additional Language, editing, and translating, Thais became acquainted with Writing Studies through her work at one of the first Writing Centers in her home country, Brazil. Her primary research focuses on the rhetorical analysis of technical genres in Brazilian public higher education, connecting her experience in writing centers with her interests in technical and professional communication, translation, and fellowship and grant writing. Having previously received the CPTSC Graduate Student Research Award, IWCA’s Future Leaders Award and Emerging Scholar Award for Pioneering Writing Research in Brazil, Thais aims to contribute to inclusive and accessible writing practices and social justice within Brazilian higher education and to explore how these practices can be transferred and taught to writers in the U.S. and beyond.
Alex Mashny is a PhD student in Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University. His research interests include technical communication, digital and cultural rhetorics, embodiment, and circulation studies.
Mehdi Mohammadi is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric & Writing at the University of New Mexico where he also teaches Core Writing as a teaching associate. His research focuses on philosophy of technology and posthumanist rhetoric.
Marie Pruitt (she/her/hers) is a Rhetoric and Composition Ph.D. student at the University of Louisville studying scholarly writing, networks, and writing technologies. Her dissertation explores the networks that support disciplinary knowledge production in writing studies journals. She also currently serves as the President of the English Graduate Organization at UofL and as a Copy Editor for Composition Studies. Before her graduate studies, she worked as a copy writer and editor for marketing companies and news outlets.
Toluwani Odedeyi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of English at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on Technical Communication, Digital Rhetoric, and User Experience. She has a background in Linguistics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and also has good professional experience as a User Experience Writer and Designer.
