I'm an Associate Professor of English at the University of Michigan, where I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetoric, writing, and language and literacy.My scholarly interests include the history of rhetoric, rhetorical theory, and composition pedagogy. I am particularly interested in the voices of marginalized rhetors and the intersections between literacy and civic action, and I seek to understand how minority, female, working-class, and first-generation college students have used their rhetorical education in public and professional spheres. My work has appeared in College English, College Composition and Communication, Rhetoric Review, and other publications, and I was the recipient of a 2001 Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and the 2004 Rhetoric Society of America Dissertation Award. I obtained my Ph.D. in 2003 at the University of Texas at Austin.
My first book, Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947, was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2008 and received the 2010 Outstanding Book Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication. (It is available through the press or Amazon.) I am currently at work on Higher Education for the New Southern Woman: Rhetoric, Identity, and Race at the Public Women's Colleges, 1884-1945, which I am co-writing with Catherine Hobbs with the assistance of a Spencer Foundation Research Grant.