Issues in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media
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This site and all session materials are designed following Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. Each session provides multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression. If any material presents an access barrier for you, please contact me and we will find an alternative.
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New weeks are added here as the semester progresses. Check back each week.
All milestones use threshold grading — Complete & Substantive · Nearly There / In Revision · Not Yet Complete. No points. No rubric scores. Honest assessment of intellectual work.
Milestone 1 · Movement I
Scholarly Identity Statement
20%
Due Week 5
Not a CV summary. A statement of intellectual purpose, written in your own voice — what questions drive you, what animates your research, and why any of it matters. ~500 words.
Prompt
Who are you as a scholar? What do you care about, and why does it matter?
Key test
Read it aloud. Does it sound like you wrote it — specific, embodied, personal? Could a stranger have written this?
Complete & Substantive
Nearly There
Not Yet Complete
Submission options
Moodle upload
Email
Hard copy
AI may be used for brainstorming or light editing. The substance must be yours — your voice, your convictions. A statement written by AI cannot do what this milestone asks.
Milestone 2 · Movement II
Draft Comprehensive Exam List
25%
Due Week 8
A working draft of your comp exam reading list with full citations, plus a rationale paragraph arguing the intellectual logic of your configuration. Not a catalog — an argument about what your project needs.
Part 1
Draft exam list, organized by your own intellectual logic — theme, method, genealogy, period, or combination. 50–80 texts typical.
Part 2
Rationale paragraph: why these texts, in this configuration, for this project?
Workshop
Peer-reviewed in class, Week 8. Revision expected before Week 10.
Complete & Substantive
Nearly There
Not Yet Complete
Submission options
Moodle upload
Email
Print copy + Moodle
Milestone 3 · Movement II
Committee Confirmation
15%
Due Week 10
Evidence that committee formation is genuinely underway — not just planned. The people you ask will shape your project and your relationship to the field for years. This makes the process real.
Option A
Forwarded email from your chair confirming their willingness to serve. Even a brief reply counts.
Option B
Written plan with named faculty, current status of each conversation, and a realistic timeline.
If stuck
Flag it in your submission. The Week 10 individual meeting is precisely the time to problem-solve. Silence is the one thing that cannot help you.
Complete & Substantive
Nearly There
Not Yet Complete
Submission options
Moodle
Email
Bring to Week 10 meeting
Milestone 4 · Movement III
Dissertation Prospectus
40%
Draft: night before Wk 14 · Final: 1 wk after Wk 15
The most consequential document you'll write before the dissertation itself. An argument that there is a real problem worth investigating, you are positioned to investigate it, and you have a principled method for doing so.
The Problem
What question are you asking, and why does it matter?
The Conversation
Who has addressed this before, and what does your project do differently?
The Method
How will you pursue this question, and why is that the right approach?
The Stakes
Why does this matter — to scholars, yes, but also beyond the discipline?
Alt option
Non-academic paths: public-facing research proposal or professional research agenda. Same rigor, different form. Talk to Kirsti before Week 11.
Complete & Substantive
Nearly There
Not Yet Complete
Submission options
Moodle upload
Email
Google Drive link
AI may be used for brainstorming or editing. Problem framing, scholarly situatedness, methodological argument, and stakes must be yours.
Shared critical vocabulary, scholarly identity, and cohort formation. Readings: Giroux · Benjamin · Mbembe · Brown.
Candidacy work begins — exam lists and committees. Readings: Federici · Fisher · Derrida · Haraway.
Week 6
Primitive Accumulation and the Labor of Knowledge
Federici, Caliban and the Witch · Canon Audit
Coming Soon
Week 7
Hauntology: What Haunts Your Field?
Fisher, Ghosts of My Life · Derrida, Specters of Marx · Rapid Presentations
Coming Soon
Week 8
Exam List Workshop
Haraway, 'Situated Knowledges' · Structured Peer Review
◆ Milestone 2 Due
Coming Soon
Week 9
Committee as Intellectual Community
Kelsky, The Professor Is In · Committee Email Workshop · Guest Speaker
Coming Soon
Week 10
Individual Meetings Week
No full group session · Individual check-ins · Prospectus Seed Writing
◆ Milestone 3 Due
Coming Soon
Spring Break
March 15–19 · Rest. Read something for pleasure. Let the semester breathe.
Rigorous, situated imagination. Prospectus drafting, peer workshopping, and forward vision. Readings: Marcuse · Ghosh.
Week 11
One-Dimensional Thinking and the Dissertation Imagination
Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man · Draft Audit
Coming Soon
Week 12
What Can Humanistic Imagination Actually Do?
Ghosh, The Great Derangement · The 'So What?' Gauntlet
Coming Soon
Week 13
Paths Forward: Alt-Ac and Otherwise
Guest Lecturers · Three Versions Side-by-Side
Coming Soon
Week 14
Prospectus Workshop
Full structured peer workshop · Workshop Response Protocol
◆ Milestone 4 Due
Coming Soon
Week 15
What We Made and What We're Seeing
Prospectus Presentations · Week 1 Card Return · Closing Reflection
Coming Soon