In my roles as scholar, teacher, and leader, I am alert to the stories and ideas that shape communities and to my responsibility for fostering equitable interactions and just structures. Whether I'm sitting in an archive, a department meeting, or a classroom, I look for patterns in communication and for the systems they feed or undercut. In other words, I am a student, scholar, and teacher of rhetoric.
Depending who you ask, studying rhetoric can mean having the ability in all circumstances to find the available means of persuasion (that's Aristotle) or practicing "the art, the fine and useful art, of making things matter" (that's Thomas Farrell), or "the art, practice, and study of human communication" (that's Andrea Lunsford). Ultimately, being a rhetorician (an expert in rhetoric) means paying attention to how we use symbols (words, pictures, sounds, gestures, etc.) to engage with the world around us; it also means teaching other people to pay attention to the shape and force of those engagements. That second part--the teaching piece--is essential. My research on rhetoric comes full circle in classrooms focused on writing, analysis, and public life. I also use and study rhetoric as a leader, fostering effective, fair, and mutually beneficial communication.
This site houses information about the research and teaching parts of my rhetorical vocation. I do this work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I'm the Marjorie and Lorin Tiefenthaler Professor of Composition & Rhetoric and Chair of the Department of English. I received my ph.d from the Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I have an MA in performance studies from New York University, and I did my undergraduate work at Saint Olaf College. I'm originally from Minnesota. Contact me at christa.olson at wisc.edu
Depending who you ask, studying rhetoric can mean having the ability in all circumstances to find the available means of persuasion (that's Aristotle) or practicing "the art, the fine and useful art, of making things matter" (that's Thomas Farrell), or "the art, practice, and study of human communication" (that's Andrea Lunsford). Ultimately, being a rhetorician (an expert in rhetoric) means paying attention to how we use symbols (words, pictures, sounds, gestures, etc.) to engage with the world around us; it also means teaching other people to pay attention to the shape and force of those engagements. That second part--the teaching piece--is essential. My research on rhetoric comes full circle in classrooms focused on writing, analysis, and public life. I also use and study rhetoric as a leader, fostering effective, fair, and mutually beneficial communication.
This site houses information about the research and teaching parts of my rhetorical vocation. I do this work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I'm the Marjorie and Lorin Tiefenthaler Professor of Composition & Rhetoric and Chair of the Department of English. I received my ph.d from the Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I have an MA in performance studies from New York University, and I did my undergraduate work at Saint Olaf College. I'm originally from Minnesota. Contact me at christa.olson at wisc.edu