Everything’s Coming Up Babies
May 18, 2008 by rcid
Spring blooms in the upstate–trees sprout new leaves, flowers poke their heads out of the earth, and the bellies of women in/related to the RCID program pop with little ones soon to make their first appearances. We celebrated this abundance on Saturday, May 17, 2008, throwing a four-way baby shower at the Vitanza’s house because, really, friends don’t let friends have babies without parties. In attendance, in full pregnant glory, were
> Xiaoli Li (Alex Kudera) > Wu Dan (Wang Pu) > Nicole Hodgson (Justin)
> Michele Morton was our fourth honoree, though her (and Keith’s) bloom had already come to fruition; Lola arrived on 22 April 2008. Here’s a pic of Michelle with Alayna and the new arrival Lola. Many of us stood in adoration of the adorable new one (and I got to hold her!), a lovely addition to the Morton’s older daughters, Juliana and Alayna. There’s not much room for Keith in this situation. But he’s in there somewhere! He has his hands full in a later picture below.
The new RCID kids will have plenty of young playmates, in addition to Juliana and Alayna–also in attendance at the party were Meredith Hilst, and Garret and Jonas Abboud (and their parents); and our new RCID families bring a few more additions to the kid-parade. There also could be some built-in babysitters in Sarah and Andrew Walwema and Roman Vitanza–but that may be a bit presumptuous.
Here’s some of the relatively new kids:
While the kids frolicked, grown-ups–numerous other RCID students, faculty, and guests–shared stories, food, and drink. In addition to baby-related conversations (from diapers to epidurals), we recounted our end of semester achievements, contemplated summer respites and travels, posited conceptual refigurings of the world, and maintained our witty repartee and quick pop culture references.
The evening ended with the distribution of a wealth of diapers (the gift of choice–though I’ve learned they’ll only cover about a week of baby bottoms–yikes!), and well-wishes for all. As the academic year has come to a close, we look forward to the fall and the continued expansion of RCID with our newbies–in so many ways!
Oh, Here’s a post-carte:
ps: Pix courtesy of Alicyn Butler and Justin Hodgson. The post-carte is of Justin’s making.
~ Amanda Booher ~
Justin Hodgson, Ph.D. candidate, RCID, has been invited to participate in ~
The RCID program with the support of the 
for space in instructional communication discourse” on Friday April 11, 2008, and was recommended for graduation by his committee. This degree will be the first Ph.D. awarded by the College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities in the history of Clemson University, as well as the first for the innovative and transdisciplinary Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design program (RCID).
In a message to the Clemson administration, Dr. Andy Billings, chair of this dissertation committee, wrote that this dissertation is “an excellent example of the type of work that can be produced at the doctoral level in this field.” Alongside Dr. Billings, Dr. Bryan Denham (Communication Studies), Dr. Bill Havice (College of Health, Education, and Human Development), and Dr. Sean Williams (English, Professional Communication) served as members of the dissertation committee.
Keith took on formal aspects, I looked at the narrative, and Jason took turns discussing portions of our papers that were similar in order to create a more fluid and integrated spoke about it in terms of electracy. We presentation. Clips played on the screen while we spoke and we referred to them when appropriate. For the most part our sections synced up well enough to mimic the integration of all three aspects in the film itself. It was fun to prepare and execute a presentation appropriate for the topic. ~ Josh Abboud
Communication Conference (CCCC) and the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference (ATTW) in New Orleans. (Top Right: Keith Morton @ the St. Martin, Bedford Publisher’s party, New Orleans Aquarium. Bottom Right: Amanda Booher, Alicia Hatter, and Randy Nichols.)
These words from 
registration for every participant. These texts are packed with images of information design. Often, he would simply reference a page number and allow the participants to simply look at the display. In most cases, the design of these displays made me interested in the content of the display and not its design. This, says Tufte, is the point.
‘I’m just Cherry’: The Role of Zombie Amputations and Machine Gun Legs in Reconceptualizing the Body.” Using examples of Oscar Pistorius denial to be allowed to participate in the Olympic games due to his prosthetic blades–making him both “disabled and super-abled”–and the character Cherry Darling, from the Tarantino & Rodriguez film Grindhouse, who “becomes who she was meant to be” once her boyfriend makes her an assault rifle/grenade launcher prosthetic leg, Amanda explored the relationships between bodies, prosthetics, and perception–particularly in relation to how technology (and the merging of human and machine) alters the way we conceive of (receive) bodies.
Rhetoric of Biology.” John’s discussion centered on the collaborative research between himself, Barbara Heifferon (former associate professor at Clemson, now Department Chair of English at the Rochester Institute of Technology), and Lesly Temesvari (Associate Professor of Biology, Clemson University). Their pilot study,* which was published in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication last fall, explored the rhetorics involved in microscopy instruction and attempted to understand how students came to see, interpret, make sense of, and recognize cellular images (and imagery).
USC faculty member John Muckelbauer, the Keynote Speaker for the event, and then a “kick-off party” hosted by USC student Eme Crawford. This sharing of “drinks” and “breaking of bread” worked exceptionally well at opening numerous conversations (scholar, professional, personal) and created an opportunity to get to know one another in an informal, yet dynamically engaging environment (much in the spirit of our own Society of the Third Sophistic meetings).
had conversations ranging from issues in Basic & Developmental writing, to the experiences of being a doctoral student, to the roles of identity, the problems of definitions, comics, films, food, travel, and so on. It was a delectable lunch with delightful conversation, and helped to further establish the connections and links being formed at the conference. Following lunch, we ventured back to Gambrell Hall for the last 2 sessions of the day: the first, “Composition Pedagogy: Visions & Revisions” featured two RCID students, Justin Hodgson and Sergio Figueiredo, and the second (and last session of the day), “Rhetorical Appropriations of Antiquity,” also featured two RCID students, Dev Bose and Jason Helms.
Business Writing and Public Speaking. By having the same students in both his courses, Justin is able to focus on “professional rhetorics” and preparing students for writing, speaking, and multimedia creating for a variety of rhetorical situations. His presentation looked at how rhetorics have become the “handmaiden of writing and speech” in the last century and a half, and how we need to resituate our focus on rhetorics, moving back to its place in the trivium, and attempt to “detonate” the great divide(s) that exist between writing and speaking (and English & Communication Studies)—and his pragmatic application of this is his pilot project.
storyboarding. Detailing how he worked with students in Jason Helms writing course, Sergio discussed the process of using storyboards (and image design) as ways for helping students think through and engage ideas. He talked about how some students did literal translations of their poetic interpretations and how others worked more creatively with the material. Acknowledging some resistant areas he encountered, Sergio went on to briefly discuss the relationships he saw between the students reading of poetry and the role/function of storyboarding.
Dev attempted to explore the connections between their work and influence of Marxist rhetorics–specifically through a process of connecting them with the works and ideas of a few post-marxists. Dev’s examination traced faint lines between the role of community, the function of the polis, and the implications of logos in relation to these things, as well as the Marxist theories that would (could) evolve from them.
adaptation of that work, Jason discussed the intricacies of moving a cool media into a hot media, but doing so in an attempt to retain its “coolness” (in the McLuhan sense). The presentation also provided an illustration of the connections of Miller’s style (which is/was unique to the comic scene) and Synder’s adaptation, which focused specifically on recreating Miller’s style in a film medium, and how that connection to style played a role in creating this “cool” film.
