While my primary focus as an academic is on teaching, I continue to engage in some scholarly research. Broadly, I focus on rhetoric, gender, and trauma. In particular, I am interested in investigating how the ways we talk about sexual violence and rape are contradictory and paradoxical, as well as how this interacts with how we think about gender and effective arguments. For example, how do the ways in which we talk about sexual violence prevention sometimes reinforce the same rape myths they are attempting to address? How can efforts to stop sexual violence can end up inadvertently reinscribing the rape culture that they explicitly state they want to dismantle? How do discourses about sexual violence imply certain conceptualizations of gender, and how does that function to either reinforce or disrupt gender essentialism? More broadly, what can the study of sexual violence prevention do to inform us about other issues and theories in communication?

You can find information about my ongoing projects, work accessible online, and a list of papers I’ve previously presented through these links or through the menu. Please contact me if you have any comments, questions, or ideas.