A book authored by Maurer Associate Professor of Performance and Communication Arts Alison Rowland that discusses how the way we talk about things impacts their perceived value has been published.
Zoetropes and the Politics of Humanhood was published by Ohio State University Press as part of its New Directions in Rhetoric & Materiality Series. It is Rowland's first book.
Building on the concept that we are constantly parsing populations into worthy lives, subhuman lives, and lives sentenced to death, Rowland’s study focuses specifically at zoetropes—the rhetorical devices and figures that result in such transvaluations. Through a series of case studies, including microbial life (at the American Gut Project), fetal life (at the National Memorial for the Unborn), and vital human life (at two of the nation’s premier fitness centers), and in conversation with cutting-edge theories of race, gender, sexuality, and disability, this book brings to light the discursive practices that set the terms for inclusion into humanhood and make us who we are.
Rowland has been at St. Lawrence since 2014 and she teaches courses like Rhetoric and Public Speaking, Gender and Communications, Rhetoric of Life and Death, and Queer Rhetorics. She has also taught in the First-Year Program and conducted a first-year seminar titled Speak Up!: Rhetoric and Public Speaking.
She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from James Madison University, a master's in critical, social, and cultural psychology from the University of Bath in Bath, Great Britain, and a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Colorado-Boulder.
