Nathaniel started following the work of 2 people.
Nathaniel started following the work of Tim Morton, University of California, Davis, English.
Nathaniel started following the work of Xiaoye You.
Faculty Member, English
Assistant Professor
College of Arts and Sciences
About
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Saint Louis University, where I serve as a research fellow in the Walter J. Ong, SJ, Center for Language, Media and Culture. I earned my Ph.D in Rhetoric and Composition at Purdue University. My primary area of research and teaching is rhetorical theory and composition, with specializations in technical and professional communication, new media and public rhetoric. Along with Paul Lynch, I edit the Kenneth Burke Journal.
My current research and writing examines rhetoric at the boundaries of the traditionally discrete categories of "culture" and "nature." Titled Cultivating Rhetorics: Embodiment, Emplacement, and Extended Minds, my book project forwards a definition of rhetoric as the cultivation of human nature by articulating rhetorical theory with cognitive science, biology, and anthropology. It sees rhetoric as the means of social, biological, and environmental persuasion by which we cobble together both ourselves as a species and the places we inhabit. What we know as “human nature” continually emerges by virtue of rhetorical cultivation within social, biological, and environmental dramas. Rhetoric thus defined challenges the tendency to treat as “natural” things like human development, cognitive function, and physical ability, which could be otherwise. Historically, theorizers, teachers, and practitioners of rhetoric have held “nature” to be stable and/or a priori and thus cut-off from rhetorical agency. Countering this, a definition of rhetoric—wedded to a model of human physiology that sees nature as anything but pre-specified—highlights the ethical and suasory nature of becoming human. Rhetoric, which I argue is about decision-making and influence, is uniquely placed as a discipline to call attention to the element of decided-ness in human nature. My current projects and recent publications similarly explore rhetoric as a practice and a field of study alongside various scientific and humanistic disciplines.
Contact Information
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| IM: | skype: nathaniel.rivers |
