March 5, 2024 • 92 mins
At UCF, the Department of Writing and Rhetoric holds an annual event called Knights Write Showcase to celebrate the work of student writers. This event began in 2010 as a place to highlight and share the research and writing occurring in the first-year writing program, and has since become a multi-day event that encompasses work in composition courses, writing across the curriculum, our three departmental publications Stylus, Convergence, and Imprint, and also The University Writing Center, undergraduate, and graduate student work.
In this episode, we talk with the following students who participated in the event:
(0.00-15:24) Rosalind Rohrbaugh “Stephen King Is Right: We’re All a Little Nuts, and That’s Okay”
(15:25-32:49) Erick Rodriquez “How Course Requirements are Communicated to Students” / Imani Rodriguez “Online Identification of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Creators”
(32:50-52:59) Evonne Simpron “Beta Incels vs. The World” / Jenna Sutphin “Online Book Communities”
(53:00-1:11:45) Kaitlyn Pottinger “The Fool’s Journey to Enlightenment: How Tarot Cards Work” / Mikayla Crawford “Graphic Pathography” / Tasha Rentas “Graphic Journalism: The Stanton Energy Center”
(1:11:46-1:31:59) Bella Love “Scrapbooking as Narrative”
Thank you to all the wonderful students who shared their experiences with us!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Greetings and welcome to
DWR discussions on writing and rhetorica space for informal conversations
around research and practice in the fieldat the university level.
A place inclusive for curious novices,blossoming scholars and seasoned academics
to consider and sharetheir inquiries, experiences and passions
surrounding writing and rhetoric.
(00:29):
We are your hosts, professorsMeeghan Faulconer and Nikolas
Gardiakoswith the University of Central Florida.
Thank you for joining us.
Now let's get this conversation started.
At UCF,
the Department of Writingand Rhetoric holds an annual event called
(00:50):
Knights Write Showcaseto celebrate the work of student writers.
This event began in 2010as a place to highlight
and share the research and writingoccurring in the first year
writing programand has since become a multiday event
that encompasses work and compositioncourses writing across the curriculum.
Our three departmental publications,stylists, Convergence and in print
(01:15):
the Writing Center, undergraduateand graduate student work
with several multi-person panels,speaking about their research
and poster presentations.
The event concludes
with prizes for outstanding work,including a scholarship and nights.
Right is not just for those enrolledas major or minor.
Students from acrossa variety of disciplines are invited
(01:37):
to participateand share the work created in our courses.
It is a fantastic wayto celebrate our incredible students
with the added benefitof showing the university
the impact of our courses on a student'sacademic journey.
Today, we will be speaking with scholarsfrom this year's event,
with both panelists and poster presenters.
(02:00):
Okay.
Our first guestso far this morning is Rosalind Rohrbach.
Did I pronounce your name correctly?
You did. Fantastic. First time.
Yes. Take it.
Not a lot of people actuallyget to that point.
We rehearsed it a couple of times.
I'll take it as a win for the day.
Absolutely.
So tell us a little bitabout your project,
maybe the title and what you were lookingat for your research.
(02:22):
So my title, it wasit was a bit long, but it was.
Stephen King is right.
We're all a little nuts and that's okay.
And it was a response to StephenKing's essay
Why We Crave Horror,which was actually published.
It was back in 1981 in a Playboy magazine.
So, you know, it's not my favorite
(02:45):
origin story, but it's all peopleread it for the article.
Yeah, absolutely.I think that's really why. Absolutely.
You know, and I think probably at the timeit was one of the more
friendly spacesfor that kind of horror discourse.
So because we were still kind of inan in a time where people were like,
yeah, you know, we're not hugefans of the genre.
(03:06):
You still had people protesting it.
So there's kind of a placefor counter-culture A little bit, yeah.
Yeah, it absolutely was.
And I mean, certainly it, it,it did a lot to, to get under people's
skin sometimes, you know,you had things like Silent Night,
Deadly Night coming out
and people were standingin front of the theater like,
keep Santa secretbecause you had a killer Santa.
(03:27):
So it wasit was a trying time for the horror genre.
So you you startedwith this seed of this article?
I did.
And how did that progressinto your research?
So really, I mean, the whole pointof actually finding the article,
it was it was completely by accidentbecause I had to look for something to
to defendfrom an argumentative perspective
(03:50):
because I was in Professorlong days, argumentative writing course.
And, you know,I mean, I've always loved horror
and I kind of just typed injust arguments for horror and bam,
there was KING So, you know, it wasit was sort of serendipitous.
And, you know,one of those happy surprises.
But once I found it, it was so easy
(04:12):
to pick it apart because it was materialthat I loved so much.
And Kingis somebody I'm very familiar with.
A lot of the referenceshe made, I'm also very familiar with,
you know, he he brought up thingslike Dawn of the Dead
and a lot of that very classical horrorthat at the time and modern horror doesn't
doesn't get this as much,even though it is this way at the time,
(04:35):
a lot of very political horror
movies, you know, about Vietnam and
I mean about classes and, you know,just just these these
these different eventsthat were occurring.
And so it was just such
it was very brief material,but it was rich.
(04:56):
And once I foundit was very easy to defend it.
Argumentative.
Lee But theoretically,you got to be really interested
in things like,I mean, why do we crave horror?
You know, what's thewhat's the emotional and the psychological
kind of aspect behind that?
So I think I feel like there's athrough line to,
(05:18):
you know, in your commentsabout how horror was, you know, sometimes
making political commentaryor social commentary and things like that.
And I
you know, I think about Jordan Peele'smovies, you know, and and things like that
is, as, you know, being connected to thatthat sort of ongoing conversation.
What were some of the connectionsyou made looking at this piece that was,
(05:41):
you know, from the eighties and then youknow, as a current fan of horror movies,
what connectionsdid you make to what you were,
what you enjoyand what you watch and things like that?
Well, it's actually funnythat you bring up Jordan Peele
because he was someonethat I was thinking a lot about.
I found King's essay sort of post
(06:05):
discovering and thinking about thesepolitical dimensions of horror.
And so it was it was more validatingand validating than anything else that,
wait a minute, this has been a longstanding conversation.
This isn't somethingthat people are just noticing now.
And I remember seeing things likeGet Out and us
and just being so blown awayand saying to myself, Oh my God,
(06:29):
here's these, these elevated and statementdriven pieces of horror.
But from that
point, I sort of started looking backand I've I've kind of
gotten the best of both worldsbecause even though I'm only 25,
I'm familiar with horror that spansall the way back in the silent era.
And that's actually thanks to my father,who's a big
(06:52):
sort of art history film buff.
And so he introduced meto a lot of things.
I mean, even like the 1930swith like Frankenstein and Jekyll
and Hyde and Nos4a2,I mean, which was even before those and,
and so it was very easy to say, okay,
there'sbeen really some consistency here of,
(07:15):
you know, looking at Jordan Peeleand looking all the way back into things
that even were before King and sayingjust just chronically, these this
this genre is always tryingto make these these statements.
And thenI also started getting into a lot of the
and I'm sure that sure a lot of familiarwith like the A24 brand,
(07:36):
and they were putting things out.
I mean, you had things like menand you had things like Saint Maud and,
you know, you had just these absolutely.
I mean, oftentimesvery devastatingly brutal movies.
But just within them,you had these very rich,
very rich undertones of thingslike religion and
(07:57):
and and, you know, I mean, guilts
and and spousal abuse and things like men,which was really this whole allegory
to freeing oneself of of unnecessary blame
in the process of sort of, I mean, healing
not only from, you know, abusefrom another person, but just sort of this
(08:22):
this restlessness of the soulthat results from that. So.
So I am thinking about somethingthat I often see my freshman students
struggle with,and it's when they find something
they're interestedin, they have a hard time sticking
to the writing and rhetoric approachto that topic.
Absolutely.
So I'm curious, what kind of balancingdid you do to keep this research,
(08:45):
writing and rhetoric relatedand not a film studies piece?
That is definitely challenging
because, of course, you know,I mean that on the surface
that does seem to be what it isyou're really looking at that
the themes and the symbolsand the undertones of all of these films.
But actually it's it's easier
(09:07):
than I think one thinks too connect
at least certain aspects of these filmsto to theories of rhetoric.
I mean, a lot of the directions
that I go in are, you know,
I've really established an interestin like the rhetorical body.
And I mean, that'sthat's a very grounded theory.
(09:29):
And in the realm of rhetorical traditionwhere you're thinking about
how different bodies are representedrhetorically, you know, with with
their movements, with their appearance,with their abilities.
And a lot of that translates intorepresentations that you see in in horror.
(09:50):
And I actually did a very shortkind of essay,
sort of, well,you know, it's in its rough stages,
but it was actually about transrepresentation in horror.
And that was not only connectedto the body itself, because of course,
this is an embodied experience,gender and sexuality.
(10:13):
But it was also really linked into other theories such as,
you know,I mean, rapid onset gender dysphoria,
which I mean, has been discussedat length, you know, a lot in rhetoric
and how certain depictions in horror
of disingenuous, mentally disturbed,
(10:36):
even,
you know, victims of parental abuseor coercion,
such as I mean, Psycho
Silence of the Lambs, sleepaway camp,you know, how these things sort of fuel
these narratives of of rapid onset genderdysphoria, which says that basically
the trans experience is disingenuousand based on mental illness.
(10:59):
And so even when
horror isn't fueling good rhetoric,
you can still find areas where it's
I mean, it's fueling some.
And then, of course, with the King piecespecifically
that tapped into Aristotlein his commentary and poetics on catharsis
(11:20):
and catharsis is very interesting
because Aristotledidn't really say much about it.
You know, he said, like,I think two sentences on it.
And so that's a really,really, really rich tradition
because you can go so many places with it,you know, because you have so little
foundation to start from.
And that's
not to say you can,you know, corrupting that theory is.
(11:43):
Of course not. Of course not.
We're all responsible scholars, writeror doing my own thing with it.
But it's just to say that you can findthese you can find these strands.
And I think that if youI think that if you handle them
mindfully and you know tactfully,
you can absolutely link themto larger bodies of rhetorical study.
(12:09):
What was it like for you
to take your workthat you created in this class,
this question, this interest that you hadand then sort of translated
or presented in the context of the night'sright showcase?
Can you tell us a little bit about thatexperience for you in this project?
Because there is that sort of timethat goes by between
(12:30):
when you do the project and then you know,when you get it ready to take it to the
to write showcase.
So can you walk us through thata little bit?
Yeah.
I mean, mostlyjust with that period of time
and I like that you brought upsort of that, that gap period
because it was probably I mean, it'sbeen like a year since I wrote that piece.
(12:52):
And so when it was like, Hey,do you want to come to nights, right.
And talk about it, I was like, Wow,let me dig back into my files.
And so
getting it out again
and reading back through itand then preparing to actually talk about
it was surprisingly easier than I thoughtthat it was going to be.
And that was because I almost well,I know that I do.
(13:17):
I felt more even more groundedin what I had been talking about with it,
because this is me in my beginning stagesof of rhetoric and horror.
And then a year later, it's like,wait a minute,
I've been doing this for a while now.
I mean, I've, I've, I've createdand this goes back actually
to your question about how do you connect
(13:38):
sort of horror and rhetoricand especially film studies with rhetoric.
I mean, I've created a kind of
a mapping of this in in my old colloquiumclass where I was able to draw
material from, you know, RSAand then a journal called Horror Studies
and linka lot of the sociopolitical topics
that were being talkedabout in both of those journals.
(14:01):
I mean, you
know, I've now been working for a while onon, you know, a paper on the cathartic
nature of gore and that sort of thatpsychoanalysis of it.
And it's it's just become something
that I'm now so informed on.
And so I almost felt like I was ableto talk
(14:21):
at more length in more detailand more confidently about it.
Once I got to nights, right thenI would have, even when I first wrote it,
if you had asked me like a monthafter I wrote it, Hey,
do you want to talk about this?I would've been like, Yeah.
And I probably would have said a lotless than that.
I was able to andand I probably would have been thinking
(14:45):
about it in a lotsimpler and surface level terms.
And so that was,that was sort of the experience.
And it's funny how time can sometimesalmost make you more familiar
with your own work.
I don't know if that's weird to say. Yeah,absolutely. No, not at all.
Yeah, well, it's always so fun for usas the professors to get to witness
(15:06):
students kind of in the momentof really talking about the things
that are of interest and enthusiasm,you know, enthusiastic about.
So thank you so much for bringing that inand letting our audience catch
a little glimpse of that. It'sfantastic. Absolutely.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Yeah,no problem. No problem at all. Thank you.
Okay.
We're joined now with Eric Rodriguez,who put together a poster
(15:30):
from Professor ProvesProfessional writing class and Z 30 to 50
and Imani Rodriguezwho took NC 11 out to composition two
with Professor Schneier,thanks for joining us. Thank you.
Thank you.
So whoever wants to speakfirst is welcome.
But tell us a little bitabout your project MI of the title and
(15:50):
kind of an overview of the researchthat you've conducted.
Well, good morning.
Um, I, my presentation was regarding,
uh, communicationwithin the university itself
and how course requirementsare communicated to students.
It was a project I felt very personal,like passionate about
as a college freshman.
(16:10):
One of the first things I had to do
was figure out which classesI had to take for my majors.
And as I went and I lookedfor information, had two very different
experiences.
First, as a computer science major,we had this nice flow chart
that kind of showed you all the courses,a prerequisite for each course.
And in about a minuteI had all the information I needed,
(16:31):
whereas withdata science, I had to directly reference
to undergraduate catalog.
And it took me half an hour to figure outwhat I was going to take that semester
for that major.
And that sort of conflictingnature of things
made me wonder, how is the other colleges,How is the other majors?
And what I found is that most students,
they typically have moreso of the latter story.
Without an advisor,they can't really forge their own path.
(16:53):
And even when they do, the advisor
is the one making their coursesand deciding what classes to take.
And I always thoughtthat this like breakdown in communication
was something that was so fixableand yet nothing was being done about it.
And so essentiallymy report dives into the problem itself,
how it's become a systemic problem
and what we can do to feasiblyand reasonably address it.
(17:15):
Mm hmm.
I know I've heard that complaint a lot
from a variety of majors,so it's absolutely topical.
Amani, what was your project?
Mine was about online identificationwith different,
like discourse communities that are basedon deaf and hard of hearing creators.
(17:35):
I basically used to watch a lot of YouTubecommentary videos,
and I like looking into my major.
I sort of realized, you know, I'mgoing to be working with people
who have different communicationdisorders, and I sort of focused
more on to switching from talking aboutjust plain YouTube
commentary to actual deafand hard of hearing creators.
(17:57):
And then I wanted to seehow do the people in the comments
sections resonateand how do they identify?
Do they identifyas deaf or hard of hearing?
Are they watching these videosbecause they have family members
who are deaf or hard of hearing?
And what is the relationshipbetween the creator and the viewer?
Mm hmm.
Can you talk a little bit about,
(18:20):
you know,in the context of each of the courses
that you did this workin, you know, how you went from, you know,
your area of interest or,you know, what you notice and observed
into actually asking the questionand then like sort of forming,
you know, the methodologyfor your projects and things like that.
(18:41):
I ask because you know, my 1102 studentsand our 1102 students
this semester are currently in the processof trying to figure out,
you know, how to go from whatthey're interested in or what they observe
to the question to the actual,like designing of of the project.
So if you could, you know,
(19:01):
just kind of walk us throughlike what that process was like for you.
Yeah.
So I will say that the way that,
you know, 30 to 50 professional writingwas structured, that definitely played
a big role in medeciding to even like pursue this topic
the way the course started, we were taught
and while with the Departmentof writing and rhetoric right,
(19:22):
there is a lot of emphasison that rhetoric part,
we learn more about the rhetoricalsituation and how all writing should be
catered to its audience, notjust our writing, but all communication.
And so after spending weeks on thisand practicing and honing our skills,
eventually one dayProfessor Proulx comes up to the class
and says, Hey,now you're going to apply these skills in.
(19:43):
Think of a communication issuethat you've noticed.
And in my case,I had my issue just about instantly.
Right?
And then she says,Write a report about it.
Talk about how you could fix that issue,how you could use your skills now
to make to improve communication.
And so from the onset, I knew already
what to do, that it had to be audiencefocused.
(20:04):
Any solution to this problemhad to be audience focused.
And so I thought to myself,because I was the audience at one point
and I thought, what worked for me?
The flowchart, right?
The computerscience flowchart, was formatted well.
They had all the informationI needed quickly, efficiently
done, just one page versus the catalog.
(20:25):
This big sort of contrast,
absolute failure in communicationby comparison.
And in fact, most collegesand most departments and most majors,
they'll either use the catalog
or try to substitute it with somethingthat somehow does things worse.
I've seen many bad flowchartsas part of my research
throughout different departments.
Some of them looked like spiderwebs,others looked like a mess of colors.
(20:49):
They all needed these complicated keysto follow, whereas the computer
science flowchart basicallydoesn't even need a key to understand.
And so I thought,okay, this needs to be a simple flowchart,
a well-organized flowchart,one that has a clear flow
that you can intuitively understandwithout someone else explaining it to you.
Of course,comprehensive doctoral flowchart needs
(21:10):
to also have all the informationthe student needs, right?
Leavelittle to no questions for the advisor.
And from there
I was able to come up with a deliverable,me and my group.
This was a three person project.
We each had our own parts.
One of my teammates, Joanna White,they are a graphic designer
and so they use their graphic designexpertise,
plus some research from their classesand the books that they were using
(21:31):
to better improve that methodologyof creating that perfect deliverable.
And from there, we were able to create
a skeleton of a well-designed flowchartand a proof of concept,
which was a flowchart for the data sciencemajor solving the issue I had initially.
And so that was the whole process,essentially some very cool.
So for my process.
(21:52):
Ian Z 1101 and 1102 They're basicallythey're sort of combined.
So the research you're doing.
Ian C 1101half the time you usually decide
to just continue with that researchwhen you're going into 1102
So for 11 01i decided to talk about
it was the same idea YouTube commentary,
(22:13):
but I ended up talkingabout a different section
I talked about on leftist YouTubecommentary, and I sort of went over
the different videos and how the politicsof the videos impact the audiences.
But I didn't do much researchregarding like comments sections.
So then when I moved to 1102,I was no longer really interested in the
politics part, so I sort of switched itto be more related to my major.
(22:36):
And then I incorporated the idea
of collecting datafrom different comment sections.
And then from there I sort of developed,okay, here's
how can I sort of read these commentsand organize comments based on identity
and like, what words are people usingand how they're using those words
and then bringing it backto the whole topic of each video.
(22:59):
And how does the differentrhetorical concepts that the videos use
impact the actual the viewers and like,how do they how does like music impact?
Are they signing
or are they speaking or are they signingand speaking at the same time?
Do they have different videosin their videos
showcasing experiences, or are theyjust speaking about those experiences?
(23:21):
And another thingwas also do they use closed captioning?
And that sort of played a part in seeinghow did the comments react to the video
and how dohow does like the numbers of the video?
Because I also looked at like subscribercount
in the view counts and likes and dislikesand things like that
and basically everythingsort of combined into each other.
So things that have moreviews are going to have more comments.
(23:44):
But some of those commentsare not necessarily related to
the numbers of peoplewho identify as deaf or not at nights.
Right.
You both had to presentvisually as well as speak to people.
Now, Amani, you were on a panel and Eric,you did a poster presentation.
Amani You had a PowerPointthat went along with your presentation.
(24:04):
So that's why I feel like there's visualand there's also the audio
auditory component.
What was it like taking the researchthat once lived only on a page
and translating it into somethingthat you had to present to an audience?
For me, it was quite, um,
I would say, transforming it from paperto reality since the issue study
of a very real thingI had, that transformation to me
(24:26):
was pretty straightforward.
I felt likeI already had the passion for this topic.
I already knew exactly how I was goingto communicate it.
For example, with my poster,it was formatted like a flow chart.
The progression of dotswere connected by arrows that would go
from the introductionto the methods around my research
to implementing the deliverableto my conclusion,
(24:47):
all with arrowsconnecting it all in between.
And when it came to actuallycommunicating it
well, it was just a matter of bringingthat passion and giving it to others.
I would always startwhenever someone came up.
I'd ask them, What's your major?
And immediately I'd make that connectionbetween my experience and their experience
because unfortunately, in this university,there's a good chance that
(25:07):
if you're not a computer
science major, you had a bad experiencedeciding what classes to take.
And that was the case.
I spoke of people who were ranging
from finance to biology to psychologyand all these different majors,
and the one thing they all had in commonis that they all had trouble
picking out their courses.
It was either that an advisorhad to do the work for them in the end,
or they had to do so much researchand create
(25:28):
all these spreadsheetsand all these sort of complicated things.
And from there just that connection.
The conversation became more of, let'stalk about this issue we have together.
Let's talk about how it affectseverybody and let's talk about solving it.
And so having that connection,that personal experience,
really, it never itdidn't feel like a paper to begin with.
The whole thing was real.
The paper was just one way to communicatethat, that the poster was another way.
(25:52):
But at no point didI think this is just something on paper.
Also bringing it back to knowyour audience.
Right, Right.
Yet again. Right.
That was probably my biggesttake away from professional writing.
Knowing your audience, it'ssomething that I'll never forget.
How about your experience?
I think my experiencewas definitely less straightforward.
I didn't exactly have a lot oflike physical components of things.
(26:16):
Half of my stuff in my original paper,I was just it was writing
and then it was numbers,and then it was different
formatted of graphs and eachgraphs telling me, you know,
what are the differences betweenthis video and this video and how people
use the word death and it was justa big mess of just numbers and words.
And I was like, I don't know howI'm going to communicate this in.
(26:38):
It was what I think it was 7 to 8 minutesand it was a long paper.
So I sort of had a lot of troublesort of figuring out how I would put
this together and make it simplified,but also keeping the context of everything
so that when you listen to me explaining,you're not just, you know, bombarded
with different numbers and confused onwhat you're supposed to read.
So I actually talked to Professor Schneierfor a while about it, and he was like,
(27:02):
Well, you know,
you can sort of simplify your research,because I had originally gone over
four different videosand four comment sections,
and it was just too much to go overin the amount of time that I had.
So I ended up switching to going over toand comparing two videos
and then focusing on going from one videoto synopsis of it
and then the commentsand then the second video
(27:23):
and the same thing, synopses and commentsand then comparing it, comparing the two.
And I think that sort of
it helped it sort of when you'relistening, you're able to follow
and what it is that I'm explainingand you're also able
to still get the gist of the videowithout me
needing to sit down and have you watchedthe whole entire video?
Because there's obviouslynot enough time for that.
But I think a lot ofit was just having to figure out
(27:46):
how do I take these numbersand make it meaningful for an audience
who have the time, likelyhave never watched a video
from a deaf creatorand don't understand the different sort
of experiences of these creatorsand how that impacts the audience at all.
There's also sometimes
a sense of ownership on researchthat we do, that it's all precious, right?
(28:09):
It's all a result of our hard workand our efforts.
And how do you pick?
It's like picking a favorite child, right?
Like, how do I how do I decidewhich of these I'm going to let go of
and which I'm going to highlight?
It's a it's
definitely a part of the
process of academics and this transitionfrom page to presentation.
But I'm glad to hear it wasit was meaningful for both of you.
(28:29):
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
And I think it's a really importantsort of skill or experience to have too.
Like how do you distill your work down to,
you know, itsmeaning for other people as well?
Obviously, like you can go in depthwhen you're doing the project,
but then when you are either presenting itor sort of explaining
(28:49):
to someone what your work is about,you know, how do you make it into that
sometimes, you know,
narrativethat that that can connect to people
in terms of what your research is about.
I wanted to ask another questionabout Knight's
Right showcase is that
(29:09):
now that it's done
and kind of looking back on it,what is that experience been like for you?
And I think it's interestingbecause, you know, you do the work
and then there's a period of time, right?
And it'susually it can be, you know, up to a year
from when you created the workto when Knight's Right showcase happens
and you're there, you know, presenting itand talking about it,
(29:32):
you know, and then you'vehad that experience at the event.
So I'm curious for you bothnow that that, you know,
all that time has has happenedbetween when you wrote,
you know, your papers and when you didyour work and presented it.
What is you know, looking back on it,what is that experience
sort of been like or meant to you Both.
(29:54):
It was honestly a wonderful experienceand public speaking
for me personally, I hadn't really done
much practice of public speakingsince the pandemic hit,
and I was nervous for some timeand I had completely lost that skill.
Right?
And so Knight's rightshowcase was really my first major test
since the pandemic ofcan I communicate effectively with people?
(30:15):
And I would say in a lot of waysit was very satisfying experience.
There are some aspects, right,that I could have maybe communicated
better, right?
I could have kept my my responsesshorter to people, right?
And maybe then
that would have led to a more engagingand more back and forth conversation.
But for the most part,I felt like I was communicating my ideas
while people were understandingwhat I was saying.
(30:36):
They were connecting to iton their personal experience.
And that led to
a very nice back and forth to where
my thoughts and their thoughts.
We were just like right thereon the same page
and it was just a great experienceoverall.
Yeah, I would say it wasit was a very challenging experi
since I had never really done publicspeaking at all.
(31:00):
I did high school and middleschool virtually, so I didn't really speak
in front of like an actual physical crowdmy whole life.
So it was like
the first experience of doing thatand I was definitely just very nervous.
I remember I originally received the emailfor Knight's Right showcase
and they announced, DidI want to do a presentation like a panel
or a or a poster presentation?
(31:23):
And I had said originally,I'll do a poster
because I feel like that would be easier.
And then they said, No, you're doingthe panel and also you're going first.
So it wasit was definitely very nerve wracking and
it was like I wanted to make sureI put the best information forward
because I am not deaf myselfor hard of hearing.
But I did want to make surethat the information that I was presenting
(31:44):
was a good showcase of their onlinecommunity and them as a whole.
And it definitely gave me the opportunityto sort of share that information
and hear some questionsfrom different people who
maybe they didn't even knowthat this existed before.
And I think it sort of brought to lifelike how important it is
that we have identity in online spaces
(32:07):
because a lot of timesyou don't really think about it.
You know, you're sort of an anonymousfigure on the Internet.
And I think it just sort of brought
it gave me a lot of more more confidencein public speaking and confidence in that
my research is actually acknowledgedby a community rather than just
I'm submitting this paperand no one's going to see it.
Well, we're both big fans of Knight right?
(32:28):
Showcase, so it's always fantasticto hear from a students perspective that
that it was a positive experienceand one that they found real value in
for them in both as scholarsand maybe even looking towards
your professional life after school.
So thank you for sharing that enthusiasmand your stories with us.
We really appreciate it.
Grant Thank you both for being here.
Thank you. Thank you.
(32:49):
We're joined now with Yvonne Simpsonand Shanna Sutphen.
Yvonne did a project in 1102with Professor Springfield,
and Janet did a project in 1102with Professor Gary CARDIACO
of Fame of notorietyhere at the podcast studios.
They both did posterpresentations that night right this year.
(33:11):
Can you tell us
kind of briefly the title of your project
and what the content basically was?
Yeah.
So for my project, it was
the title was Beta in Cells versusthe World,
An Exploration of Rhetoric
within Incel Communities.
(33:33):
And basically I wanted to identify
the kind of narratives that
incel communities online were spreading.
Specifically,we had to pick a specific digital space,
and I chose a for Chan
on a board called a Robot
(33:53):
9001 or our nine K because it is
known as the board that like Incels go to
to like vent and rant about,
you know, like
just like incel
rhetoric and ideas and identities.
(34:15):
So because I'm a little bit of the olderdemographic that listens to this podcast,
would you be willing to just brieflyexplain what you mean by that,
what Incels are and like the kindof discussions they're having online?
Yeah. Yes.
So Incels is a combination
of two words involuntary celibate.
And it is a term typically referred to
(34:39):
towards men.
Typically like
cisgender heterosexual white men who
claim that they experiencea debilitating lack of romantic
relationships in their lives, submissivetypically towards
women and
(34:59):
suffer from like thiscrippling loneliness.
And usuallywhat they do to cope with those feelings
is, you know, blame.
They they have this
they have this perspective
that they're like the ideal male.
(35:21):
And they will never succeed in lifebecause like society and,
women are like inherently undermining themand they're like foundationally built
to reject men like them
and they build this narrative of like,
even if they, like,see themselves and like, hate themselves,
they build this narrativeto push the blame towards others,
(35:46):
especially towards like white women,because they
they paint them as likethis monstrous feminine others who are
and essentially like,
demonize and dehumanize women,saying that,
you know, they they are
they only wish like nothing
but pain, like men like them. Hmm.
(36:10):
Very lighthearted topic.
Joanna, why don't you fall
back?
So I looked into online book communities.
I specifically wanted to see how theseonline communities were affecting readers.
So I looked into YouTube,TikTok and Instagram, their online
but corners of the internetand looked into specific
(36:32):
while some posts and commentsand captions stuff like that
to see how one creatorswere making their content
and to how people the readerswere responding to it.
So through those platformsI was able to kind of differentiate
between the platforms and the kind ofcontent they'd post on said platforms.
(36:53):
You know how Instagramis going to be different than Tik Tok,
which is different than YouTube, stufflike that.
And I found it so interesting.
I was love to be able to go intoa community that I was already a part of
and like analyze it in a contextlike that.
And I had a lot of fun with that.
I put a lot of a lot of time into it,but I'm so happy I did it because it,
you know, had a great outcome of mebeing able to present nights, Right.
(37:14):
So it sounds like you did both a littlebit of genre analysis of
the communication itself as
well as a consideration of the discoursecommunities that they practice in.
Mm hmm. And then.
Greetings and welcome to
DWR discussions on writing and rhetorica space for informal conversations
around research and practice in the fieldat the university level.
A place inclusive for curious novices,blossoming scholars and seasoned academics
to consider and sharetheir inquiries, experiences and passions
surrounding writing and rhetoric.
(00:29):
We are your hosts, professorsMeeghan Faulconer and Nikolas
Gardiakoswith the University of Central Florida.
Thank you for joining us.
Now let's get this conversation started.
At UCF,
the Department of Writingand Rhetoric holds an annual event called
(00:50):
Knights Write Showcaseto celebrate the work of student writers.
This event began in 2010as a place to highlight
and share the research and writingoccurring in the first year
writing programand has since become a multiday event
that encompasses work and compositioncourses writing across the curriculum.
Our three departmental publications,stylists, Convergence and in print
(01:15):
the Writing Center, undergraduateand graduate student work
with several multi-person panels,speaking about their research
and poster presentations.
The event concludes
with prizes for outstanding work,including a scholarship and nights.
Right is not just for those enrolledas major or minor.
Students from acrossa variety of disciplines are invited
(01:37):
to participateand share the work created in our courses.
It is a fantastic wayto celebrate our incredible students
with the added benefitof showing the university
the impact of our courses on a student'sacademic journey.
Today, we will be speaking with scholarsfrom this year's event,
with both panelists and poster presenters.
(02:00):
Okay.
Our first guestso far this morning is Rosalind Rohrbach.
Did I pronounce your name correctly?
You did. Fantastic. First time.
Yes. Take it.
Not a lot of people actuallyget to that point.
We rehearsed it a couple of times.
I'll take it as a win for the day.
Absolutely.
So tell us a little bitabout your project,
maybe the title and what you were lookingat for your research.
(02:22):
So my title, it wasit was a bit long, but it was.
Stephen King is right.
We're all a little nuts and that's okay.
And it was a response to StephenKing's essay
Why We Crave Horror,which was actually published.
It was back in 1981 in a Playboy magazine.
So, you know, it's not my favorite
(02:45):
origin story, but it's all peopleread it for the article.
Yeah, absolutely.I think that's really why. Absolutely.
You know, and I think probably at the timeit was one of the more
friendly spacesfor that kind of horror discourse.
So because we were still kind of inan in a time where people were like,
yeah, you know, we're not hugefans of the genre.
(03:06):
You still had people protesting it.
So there's kind of a placefor counter-culture A little bit, yeah.
Yeah, it absolutely was.
And I mean, certainly it, it,it did a lot to, to get under people's
skin sometimes, you know,you had things like Silent Night,
Deadly Night coming out
and people were standingin front of the theater like,
keep Santa secretbecause you had a killer Santa.
(03:27):
So it wasit was a trying time for the horror genre.
So you you startedwith this seed of this article?
I did.
And how did that progressinto your research?
So really, I mean, the whole pointof actually finding the article,
it was it was completely by accidentbecause I had to look for something to
to defendfrom an argumentative perspective
(03:50):
because I was in Professorlong days, argumentative writing course.
And, you know,I mean, I've always loved horror
and I kind of just typed injust arguments for horror and bam,
there was KING So, you know, it wasit was sort of serendipitous.
And, you know,one of those happy surprises.
But once I found it, it was so easy
(04:12):
to pick it apart because it was materialthat I loved so much.
And Kingis somebody I'm very familiar with.
A lot of the referenceshe made, I'm also very familiar with,
you know, he he brought up thingslike Dawn of the Dead
and a lot of that very classical horrorthat at the time and modern horror doesn't
doesn't get this as much,even though it is this way at the time,
(04:35):
a lot of very political horror
movies, you know, about Vietnam and
I mean about classes and, you know,just just these these
these different eventsthat were occurring.
And so it was just such
it was very brief material,but it was rich.
(04:56):
And once I foundit was very easy to defend it.
Argumentative.
Lee But theoretically,you got to be really interested
in things like,I mean, why do we crave horror?
You know, what's thewhat's the emotional and the psychological
kind of aspect behind that?
So I think I feel like there's athrough line to,
(05:18):
you know, in your commentsabout how horror was, you know, sometimes
making political commentaryor social commentary and things like that.
And I
you know, I think about Jordan Peele'smovies, you know, and and things like that
is, as, you know, being connected to thatthat sort of ongoing conversation.
What were some of the connectionsyou made looking at this piece that was,
(05:41):
you know, from the eighties and then youknow, as a current fan of horror movies,
what connectionsdid you make to what you were,
what you enjoyand what you watch and things like that?
Well, it's actually funnythat you bring up Jordan Peele
because he was someonethat I was thinking a lot about.
I found King's essay sort of post
(06:05):
discovering and thinking about thesepolitical dimensions of horror.
And so it was it was more validatingand validating than anything else that,
wait a minute, this has been a longstanding conversation.
This isn't somethingthat people are just noticing now.
And I remember seeing things likeGet Out and us
and just being so blown awayand saying to myself, Oh my God,
(06:29):
here's these, these elevated and statementdriven pieces of horror.
But from that
point, I sort of started looking backand I've I've kind of
gotten the best of both worldsbecause even though I'm only 25,
I'm familiar with horror that spansall the way back in the silent era.
And that's actually thanks to my father,who's a big
(06:52):
sort of art history film buff.
And so he introduced meto a lot of things.
I mean, even like the 1930swith like Frankenstein and Jekyll
and Hyde and Nos4a2,I mean, which was even before those and,
and so it was very easy to say, okay,
there'sbeen really some consistency here of,
(07:15):
you know, looking at Jordan Peeleand looking all the way back into things
that even were before King and sayingjust just chronically, these this
this genre is always tryingto make these these statements.
And thenI also started getting into a lot of the
and I'm sure that sure a lot of familiarwith like the A24 brand,
(07:36):
and they were putting things out.
I mean, you had things like menand you had things like Saint Maud and,
you know, you had just these absolutely.
I mean, oftentimesvery devastatingly brutal movies.
But just within them,you had these very rich,
very rich undertones of thingslike religion and
(07:57):
and and, you know, I mean, guilts
and and spousal abuse and things like men,which was really this whole allegory
to freeing oneself of of unnecessary blame
in the process of sort of, I mean, healing
not only from, you know, abusefrom another person, but just sort of this
(08:22):
this restlessness of the soulthat results from that. So.
So I am thinking about somethingthat I often see my freshman students
struggle with,and it's when they find something
they're interestedin, they have a hard time sticking
to the writing and rhetoric approachto that topic.
Absolutely.
So I'm curious, what kind of balancingdid you do to keep this research,
(08:45):
writing and rhetoric relatedand not a film studies piece?
That is definitely challenging
because, of course, you know,I mean that on the surface
that does seem to be what it isyou're really looking at that
the themes and the symbolsand the undertones of all of these films.
But actually it's it's easier
(09:07):
than I think one thinks too connect
at least certain aspects of these filmsto to theories of rhetoric.
I mean, a lot of the directions
that I go in are, you know,
I've really established an interestin like the rhetorical body.
And I mean, that'sthat's a very grounded theory.
(09:29):
And in the realm of rhetorical traditionwhere you're thinking about
how different bodies are representedrhetorically, you know, with with
their movements, with their appearance,with their abilities.
And a lot of that translates intorepresentations that you see in in horror.
(09:50):
And I actually did a very shortkind of essay,
sort of, well,you know, it's in its rough stages,
but it was actually about transrepresentation in horror.
And that was not only connectedto the body itself, because of course,
this is an embodied experience,gender and sexuality.
(10:13):
But it was also really linked into other theories such as,
you know,I mean, rapid onset gender dysphoria,
which I mean, has been discussedat length, you know, a lot in rhetoric
and how certain depictions in horror
of disingenuous, mentally disturbed,
(10:36):
even,
you know, victims of parental abuseor coercion,
such as I mean, Psycho
Silence of the Lambs, sleepaway camp,you know, how these things sort of fuel
these narratives of of rapid onset genderdysphoria, which says that basically
the trans experience is disingenuousand based on mental illness.
(10:59):
And so even when
horror isn't fueling good rhetoric,
you can still find areas where it's
I mean, it's fueling some.
And then, of course, with the King piecespecifically
that tapped into Aristotlein his commentary and poetics on catharsis
(11:20):
and catharsis is very interesting
because Aristotledidn't really say much about it.
You know, he said, like,I think two sentences on it.
And so that's a really,really, really rich tradition
because you can go so many places with it,you know, because you have so little
foundation to start from.
And that's
not to say you can,you know, corrupting that theory is.
(11:43):
Of course not. Of course not.
We're all responsible scholars, writeror doing my own thing with it.
But it's just to say that you can findthese you can find these strands.
And I think that if youI think that if you handle them
mindfully and you know tactfully,
you can absolutely link themto larger bodies of rhetorical study.
(12:09):
What was it like for you
to take your workthat you created in this class,
this question, this interest that you hadand then sort of translated
or presented in the context of the night'sright showcase?
Can you tell us a little bit about thatexperience for you in this project?
Because there is that sort of timethat goes by between
(12:30):
when you do the project and then you know,when you get it ready to take it to the
to write showcase.
So can you walk us through thata little bit?
Yeah.
I mean, mostlyjust with that period of time
and I like that you brought upsort of that, that gap period
because it was probably I mean, it'sbeen like a year since I wrote that piece.
(12:52):
And so when it was like, Hey,do you want to come to nights, right.
And talk about it, I was like, Wow,let me dig back into my files.
And so
getting it out again
and reading back through itand then preparing to actually talk about
it was surprisingly easier than I thoughtthat it was going to be.
And that was because I almost well,I know that I do.
(13:17):
I felt more even more groundedin what I had been talking about with it,
because this is me in my beginning stagesof of rhetoric and horror.
And then a year later, it's like,wait a minute,
I've been doing this for a while now.
I mean, I've, I've, I've createdand this goes back actually
to your question about how do you connect
(13:38):
sort of horror and rhetoricand especially film studies with rhetoric.
I mean, I've created a kind of
a mapping of this in in my old colloquiumclass where I was able to draw
material from, you know, RSAand then a journal called Horror Studies
and linka lot of the sociopolitical topics
that were being talkedabout in both of those journals.
(14:01):
I mean, you
know, I've now been working for a while onon, you know, a paper on the cathartic
nature of gore and that sort of thatpsychoanalysis of it.
And it's it's just become something
that I'm now so informed on.
And so I almost felt like I was ableto talk
(14:21):
at more length in more detailand more confidently about it.
Once I got to nights, right thenI would have, even when I first wrote it,
if you had asked me like a monthafter I wrote it, Hey,
do you want to talk about this?I would've been like, Yeah.
And I probably would have said a lotless than that.
I was able to andand I probably would have been thinking
(14:45):
about it in a lotsimpler and surface level terms.
And so that was,that was sort of the experience.
And it's funny how time can sometimesalmost make you more familiar
with your own work.
I don't know if that's weird to say. Yeah,absolutely. No, not at all.
Yeah, well, it's always so fun for usas the professors to get to witness
(15:06):
students kind of in the momentof really talking about the things
that are of interest and enthusiasm,you know, enthusiastic about.
So thank you so much for bringing that inand letting our audience catch
a little glimpse of that. It'sfantastic. Absolutely.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Yeah,no problem. No problem at all. Thank you.
Okay.
We're joined now with Eric Rodriguez,who put together a poster
(15:30):
from Professor ProvesProfessional writing class and Z 30 to 50
and Imani Rodriguezwho took NC 11 out to composition two
with Professor Schneier,thanks for joining us. Thank you.
Thank you.
So whoever wants to speakfirst is welcome.
But tell us a little bitabout your project MI of the title and
(15:50):
kind of an overview of the researchthat you've conducted.
Well, good morning.
Um, I, my presentation was regarding,
uh, communicationwithin the university itself
and how course requirementsare communicated to students.
It was a project I felt very personal,like passionate about
as a college freshman.
(16:10):
One of the first things I had to do
was figure out which classesI had to take for my majors.
And as I went and I lookedfor information, had two very different
experiences.
First, as a computer science major,we had this nice flow chart
that kind of showed you all the courses,a prerequisite for each course.
And in about a minuteI had all the information I needed,
(16:31):
whereas withdata science, I had to directly reference
to undergraduate catalog.
And it took me half an hour to figure outwhat I was going to take that semester
for that major.
And that sort of conflictingnature of things
made me wonder, how is the other colleges,How is the other majors?
And what I found is that most students,
they typically have moreso of the latter story.
Without an advisor,they can't really forge their own path.
(16:53):
And even when they do, the advisor
is the one making their coursesand deciding what classes to take.
And I always thoughtthat this like breakdown in communication
was something that was so fixableand yet nothing was being done about it.
And so essentiallymy report dives into the problem itself,
how it's become a systemic problem
and what we can do to feasiblyand reasonably address it.
(17:15):
Mm hmm.
I know I've heard that complaint a lot
from a variety of majors,so it's absolutely topical.
Amani, what was your project?
Mine was about online identificationwith different,
like discourse communities that are basedon deaf and hard of hearing creators.
(17:35):
I basically used to watch a lot of YouTubecommentary videos,
and I like looking into my major.
I sort of realized, you know, I'mgoing to be working with people
who have different communicationdisorders, and I sort of focused
more on to switching from talking aboutjust plain YouTube
commentary to actual deafand hard of hearing creators.
(17:57):
And then I wanted to seehow do the people in the comments
sections resonateand how do they identify?
Do they identifyas deaf or hard of hearing?
Are they watching these videosbecause they have family members
who are deaf or hard of hearing?
And what is the relationshipbetween the creator and the viewer?
Mm hmm.
Can you talk a little bit about,
(18:20):
you know,in the context of each of the courses
that you did this workin, you know, how you went from, you know,
your area of interest or,you know, what you notice and observed
into actually asking the questionand then like sort of forming,
you know, the methodologyfor your projects and things like that.
(18:41):
I ask because you know, my 1102 studentsand our 1102 students
this semester are currently in the processof trying to figure out,
you know, how to go from whatthey're interested in or what they observe
to the question to the actual,like designing of of the project.
So if you could, you know,
(19:01):
just kind of walk us throughlike what that process was like for you.
Yeah.
So I will say that the way that,
you know, 30 to 50 professional writingwas structured, that definitely played
a big role in medeciding to even like pursue this topic
the way the course started, we were taught
and while with the Departmentof writing and rhetoric right,
(19:22):
there is a lot of emphasison that rhetoric part,
we learn more about the rhetoricalsituation and how all writing should be
catered to its audience, notjust our writing, but all communication.
And so after spending weeks on thisand practicing and honing our skills,
eventually one dayProfessor Proulx comes up to the class
and says, Hey,now you're going to apply these skills in.
(19:43):
Think of a communication issuethat you've noticed.
And in my case,I had my issue just about instantly.
Right?
And then she says,Write a report about it.
Talk about how you could fix that issue,how you could use your skills now
to make to improve communication.
And so from the onset, I knew already
what to do, that it had to be audiencefocused.
(20:04):
Any solution to this problemhad to be audience focused.
And so I thought to myself,because I was the audience at one point
and I thought, what worked for me?
The flowchart, right?
The computerscience flowchart, was formatted well.
They had all the informationI needed quickly, efficiently
done, just one page versus the catalog.
(20:25):
This big sort of contrast,
absolute failure in communicationby comparison.
And in fact, most collegesand most departments and most majors,
they'll either use the catalog
or try to substitute it with somethingthat somehow does things worse.
I've seen many bad flowchartsas part of my research
throughout different departments.
Some of them looked like spiderwebs,others looked like a mess of colors.
(20:49):
They all needed these complicated keysto follow, whereas the computer
science flowchart basicallydoesn't even need a key to understand.
And so I thought,okay, this needs to be a simple flowchart,
a well-organized flowchart,one that has a clear flow
that you can intuitively understandwithout someone else explaining it to you.
Of course,comprehensive doctoral flowchart needs
(21:10):
to also have all the informationthe student needs, right?
Leavelittle to no questions for the advisor.
And from there
I was able to come up with a deliverable,me and my group.
This was a three person project.
We each had our own parts.
One of my teammates, Joanna White,they are a graphic designer
and so they use their graphic designexpertise,
plus some research from their classesand the books that they were using
(21:31):
to better improve that methodologyof creating that perfect deliverable.
And from there, we were able to create
a skeleton of a well-designed flowchartand a proof of concept,
which was a flowchart for the data sciencemajor solving the issue I had initially.
And so that was the whole process,essentially some very cool.
So for my process.
(21:52):
Ian Z 1101 and 1102 They're basicallythey're sort of combined.
So the research you're doing.
Ian C 1101half the time you usually decide
to just continue with that researchwhen you're going into 1102
So for 11 01i decided to talk about
it was the same idea YouTube commentary,
(22:13):
but I ended up talkingabout a different section
I talked about on leftist YouTubecommentary, and I sort of went over
the different videos and how the politicsof the videos impact the audiences.
But I didn't do much researchregarding like comments sections.
So then when I moved to 1102,I was no longer really interested in the
politics part, so I sort of switched itto be more related to my major.
(22:36):
And then I incorporated the idea
of collecting datafrom different comment sections.
And then from there I sort of developed,okay, here's
how can I sort of read these commentsand organize comments based on identity
and like, what words are people usingand how they're using those words
and then bringing it backto the whole topic of each video.
(22:59):
And how does the differentrhetorical concepts that the videos use
impact the actual the viewers and like,how do they how does like music impact?
Are they signing
or are they speaking or are they signingand speaking at the same time?
Do they have different videosin their videos
showcasing experiences, or are theyjust speaking about those experiences?
(23:21):
And another thingwas also do they use closed captioning?
And that sort of played a part in seeinghow did the comments react to the video
and how dohow does like the numbers of the video?
Because I also looked at like subscribercount
in the view counts and likes and dislikesand things like that
and basically everythingsort of combined into each other.
So things that have moreviews are going to have more comments.
(23:44):
But some of those commentsare not necessarily related to
the numbers of peoplewho identify as deaf or not at nights.
Right.
You both had to presentvisually as well as speak to people.
Now, Amani, you were on a panel and Eric,you did a poster presentation.
Amani You had a PowerPointthat went along with your presentation.
(24:04):
So that's why I feel like there's visualand there's also the audio
auditory component.
What was it like taking the researchthat once lived only on a page
and translating it into somethingthat you had to present to an audience?
For me, it was quite, um,
I would say, transforming it from paperto reality since the issue study
of a very real thingI had, that transformation to me
(24:26):
was pretty straightforward.
I felt likeI already had the passion for this topic.
I already knew exactly how I was goingto communicate it.
For example, with my poster,it was formatted like a flow chart.
The progression of dotswere connected by arrows that would go
from the introductionto the methods around my research
to implementing the deliverableto my conclusion,
(24:47):
all with arrowsconnecting it all in between.
And when it came to actuallycommunicating it
well, it was just a matter of bringingthat passion and giving it to others.
I would always startwhenever someone came up.
I'd ask them, What's your major?
And immediately I'd make that connectionbetween my experience and their experience
because unfortunately, in this university,there's a good chance that
(25:07):
if you're not a computer
science major, you had a bad experiencedeciding what classes to take.
And that was the case.
I spoke of people who were ranging
from finance to biology to psychologyand all these different majors,
and the one thing they all had in commonis that they all had trouble
picking out their courses.
It was either that an advisorhad to do the work for them in the end,
or they had to do so much researchand create
(25:28):
all these spreadsheetsand all these sort of complicated things.
And from there just that connection.
The conversation became more of, let'stalk about this issue we have together.
Let's talk about how it affectseverybody and let's talk about solving it.
And so having that connection,that personal experience,
really, it never itdidn't feel like a paper to begin with.
The whole thing was real.
The paper was just one way to communicatethat, that the poster was another way.
(25:52):
But at no point didI think this is just something on paper.
Also bringing it back to knowyour audience.
Right, Right.
Yet again. Right.
That was probably my biggesttake away from professional writing.
Knowing your audience, it'ssomething that I'll never forget.
How about your experience?
I think my experiencewas definitely less straightforward.
I didn't exactly have a lot oflike physical components of things.
(26:16):
Half of my stuff in my original paper,I was just it was writing
and then it was numbers,and then it was different
formatted of graphs and eachgraphs telling me, you know,
what are the differences betweenthis video and this video and how people
use the word death and it was justa big mess of just numbers and words.
And I was like, I don't know howI'm going to communicate this in.
(26:38):
It was what I think it was 7 to 8 minutesand it was a long paper.
So I sort of had a lot of troublesort of figuring out how I would put
this together and make it simplified,but also keeping the context of everything
so that when you listen to me explaining,you're not just, you know, bombarded
with different numbers and confused onwhat you're supposed to read.
So I actually talked to Professor Schneierfor a while about it, and he was like,
(27:02):
Well, you know,
you can sort of simplify your research,because I had originally gone over
four different videosand four comment sections,
and it was just too much to go overin the amount of time that I had.
So I ended up switching to going over toand comparing two videos
and then focusing on going from one videoto synopsis of it
and then the commentsand then the second video
(27:23):
and the same thing, synopses and commentsand then comparing it, comparing the two.
And I think that sort of
it helped it sort of when you'relistening, you're able to follow
and what it is that I'm explainingand you're also able
to still get the gist of the videowithout me
needing to sit down and have you watchedthe whole entire video?
Because there's obviouslynot enough time for that.
But I think a lot ofit was just having to figure out
(27:46):
how do I take these numbersand make it meaningful for an audience
who have the time, likelyhave never watched a video
from a deaf creatorand don't understand the different sort
of experiences of these creatorsand how that impacts the audience at all.
There's also sometimes
a sense of ownership on researchthat we do, that it's all precious, right?
(28:09):
It's all a result of our hard workand our efforts.
And how do you pick?
It's like picking a favorite child, right?
Like, how do I how do I decidewhich of these I'm going to let go of
and which I'm going to highlight?
It's a it's
definitely a part of the
process of academics and this transitionfrom page to presentation.
But I'm glad to hear it wasit was meaningful for both of you.
(28:29):
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
And I think it's a really importantsort of skill or experience to have too.
Like how do you distill your work down to,
you know, itsmeaning for other people as well?
Obviously, like you can go in depthwhen you're doing the project,
but then when you are either presenting itor sort of explaining
(28:49):
to someone what your work is about,you know, how do you make it into that
sometimes, you know,
narrativethat that that can connect to people
in terms of what your research is about.
I wanted to ask another questionabout Knight's
Right showcase is that
(29:09):
now that it's done
and kind of looking back on it,what is that experience been like for you?
And I think it's interestingbecause, you know, you do the work
and then there's a period of time, right?
And it'susually it can be, you know, up to a year
from when you created the workto when Knight's Right showcase happens
and you're there, you know, presenting itand talking about it,
(29:32):
you know, and then you'vehad that experience at the event.
So I'm curious for you bothnow that that, you know,
all that time has has happenedbetween when you wrote,
you know, your papers and when you didyour work and presented it.
What is you know, looking back on it,what is that experience
sort of been like or meant to you Both.
(29:54):
It was honestly a wonderful experienceand public speaking
for me personally, I hadn't really done
much practice of public speakingsince the pandemic hit,
and I was nervous for some timeand I had completely lost that skill.
Right?
And so Knight's rightshowcase was really my first major test
since the pandemic ofcan I communicate effectively with people?
(30:15):
And I would say in a lot of waysit was very satisfying experience.
There are some aspects, right,that I could have maybe communicated
better, right?
I could have kept my my responsesshorter to people, right?
And maybe then
that would have led to a more engagingand more back and forth conversation.
But for the most part,I felt like I was communicating my ideas
while people were understandingwhat I was saying.
(30:36):
They were connecting to iton their personal experience.
And that led to
a very nice back and forth to where
my thoughts and their thoughts.
We were just like right thereon the same page
and it was just a great experienceoverall.
Yeah, I would say it wasit was a very challenging experi
since I had never really done publicspeaking at all.
(31:00):
I did high school and middleschool virtually, so I didn't really speak
in front of like an actual physical crowdmy whole life.
So it was like
the first experience of doing thatand I was definitely just very nervous.
I remember I originally received the emailfor Knight's Right showcase
and they announced, DidI want to do a presentation like a panel
or a or a poster presentation?
(31:23):
And I had said originally,I'll do a poster
because I feel like that would be easier.
And then they said, No, you're doingthe panel and also you're going first.
So it wasit was definitely very nerve wracking and
it was like I wanted to make sureI put the best information forward
because I am not deaf myselfor hard of hearing.
But I did want to make surethat the information that I was presenting
(31:44):
was a good showcase of their onlinecommunity and them as a whole.
And it definitely gave me the opportunityto sort of share that information
and hear some questionsfrom different people who
maybe they didn't even knowthat this existed before.
And I think it sort of brought to lifelike how important it is
that we have identity in online spaces
(32:07):
because a lot of timesyou don't really think about it.
You know, you're sort of an anonymousfigure on the Internet.
And I think it just sort of brought
it gave me a lot of more more confidencein public speaking and confidence in that
my research is actually acknowledgedby a community rather than just
I'm submitting this paperand no one's going to see it.
Well, we're both big fans of Knight right?
(32:28):
Showcase, so it's always fantasticto hear from a students perspective that
that it was a positive experienceand one that they found real value in
for them in both as scholarsand maybe even looking towards
your professional life after school.
So thank you for sharing that enthusiasmand your stories with us.
We really appreciate it.
Grant Thank you both for being here.
Thank you. Thank you.
(32:49):
We're joined now with Yvonne Simpsonand Shanna Sutphen.
Yvonne did a project in 1102with Professor Springfield,
and Janet did a project in 1102with Professor Gary CARDIACO
of Fame of notorietyhere at the podcast studios.
They both did posterpresentations that night right this year.
(33:11):
Can you tell us
kind of briefly the title of your project
and what the content basically was?
Yeah.
So for my project, it was
the title was Beta in Cells versusthe World,
An Exploration of Rhetoric
within Incel Communities.
(33:33):
And basically I wanted to identify
the kind of narratives that
incel communities online were spreading.
Specifically,we had to pick a specific digital space,
and I chose a for Chan
on a board called a Robot
(33:53):
9001 or our nine K because it is
known as the board that like Incels go to
to like vent and rant about,
you know, like
just like incel
rhetoric and ideas and identities.
(34:15):
So because I'm a little bit of the olderdemographic that listens to this podcast,
would you be willing to just brieflyexplain what you mean by that,
what Incels are and like the kindof discussions they're having online?
Yeah. Yes.
So Incels is a combination
of two words involuntary celibate.
And it is a term typically referred to
(34:39):
towards men.
Typically like
cisgender heterosexual white men who
claim that they experiencea debilitating lack of romantic
relationships in their lives, submissivetypically towards
women and
(34:59):
suffer from like thiscrippling loneliness.
And usuallywhat they do to cope with those feelings
is, you know, blame.
They they have this
they have this perspective
that they're like the ideal male.
(35:21):
And they will never succeed in lifebecause like society and,
women are like inherently undermining themand they're like foundationally built
to reject men like them
and they build this narrative of like,
even if they, like,see themselves and like, hate themselves,
they build this narrativeto push the blame towards others,
(35:46):
especially towards like white women,because they
they paint them as likethis monstrous feminine others who are
and essentially like,
demonize and dehumanize women,saying that,
you know, they they are
they only wish like nothing
but pain, like men like them. Hmm.
(36:10):
Very lighthearted topic.
Joanna, why don't you fall
back?
So I looked into online book communities.
I specifically wanted to see how theseonline communities were affecting readers.
So I looked into YouTube,TikTok and Instagram, their online
but corners of the internetand looked into specific
(36:32):
while some posts and commentsand captions stuff like that
to see how one creatorswere making their content
and to how people the readerswere responding to it.
So through those platformsI was able to kind of differentiate
between the platforms and the kind ofcontent they'd post on said platforms.
(36:53):
You know how Instagramis going to be different than Tik Tok,
which is different than YouTube, stufflike that.
And I found it so interesting.
I was love to be able to go intoa community that I was already a part of
and like analyze it in a contextlike that.
And I had a lot of fun with that.
I put a lot of a lot of time into it,but I'm so happy I did it because it,
you know, had a great outcome of mebeing able to present nights, Right.
(37:14):
So it sounds like you did both a littlebit of genre analysis of
the communication itself as
well as a consideration of the discoursecommunities that they practice in.
Mm hmm. And then.
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