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ARSTM at the Rhetoric Society of America

The ARSTM Preconference will be held on May 23rd. The RSA Conference program can be found here: https://rhetoricsociety.org/annual-meeting/rsa-conference-2024/program/


ARSTM Preconference 2024
Fail/Safe–An Inquiry into Failure and Safety in the Rhetorics of Science, Technology, and Medicine

7:45-8:00: Introduction, Remarks, and Thanks

8-9:15: Panel 1 Exploring Failure and Safety in Familial Contexts

  • Failing to Keep Safe: Errors and Opportunities for Improvement in Social Work and Child Protective Services (Susan L. Popham)
  • Checking Boxes: Investigating Adoption Preference Forms (APFs) as Technical Rhetorics at the Confluence of the Medical, Social, and Bureaucratic (Hannah Locher)
  • Failure, Risk and Pro-Natural Birth Discourse (Julie Homchick Crowe and Colleen Derkatch)

9:15-10:30: Panel 2 Publics and Documents

  • Failing to Obtain Trust in Public Trust Lands: Analyzing Stakeholder Perceptions of the Bear Lake Comprehensive Management Plan and its Kairoi (Wesley Mathis)
  • Safety Amidst Whorephobia: Queer Use of Online Terms of Service (Avery Edenfield and Rachel Jordan)
  • Unsafe Territories: Choices, Access and Rhetoric of Safety for Immigrant Healthcare (Munira Mutmainna)

MORNING BREAK: 10:30-10:45

10:45-12: Panel 3 Defining Care in Health Communication Pedagogy and Educational Materials 

  • Clear Expectations and Intentional Conversations: The Importance of Pedagogical Rhetorics of Care in Medical & Public Health Graduate Programs (Katherine (Kat) Mavridou-Hernandez, Ariana Johnson, and Isabella Correia)
  • Redefining the Rhetorical Landscape of HPV Vaccination: Inclusivity, Gender, and the Unsafe Online Gardasil Discourse (Steven Amador)

LUNCH BREAK: 12-1:15

1:15-2:30 Panel 4 Science, Technology, and Representations

  • What is Microbiomish? A Rhetorical Approach to Preserving the Privilege of Being Allowed to Fail in Microbiome Research (Erika Szymanski)
  • Safety in the Plantationocene: Representations of Human-Elephant Conflict from a Community Perspective (Jason Ludden)
  • Exploring a Very Strange Place: Rhetorical Ethos in the Context of TikTok Conspiracy Theories (Amy Koerber and Tameem Al-Shawaf)

2:30-3:45 Panel 5: Citizen Science, Rhetoric, and Cybernetics: Theorizing Failure and Safety

  • Science Literacy as Reciprocity? A Critical Rhetorical Examination of Citizen Science Reports (Carlee A. Baker)
  • What is Rhetorical Privacy?: The Uncertainty of Binaries Operating in Communication and Across Culture (Charles Woods)
  • Cybernetics as Rhetorical Fail/Safe (Kimberlyn Harrison)
  • Medicalization as Destigmatization: The Brain Disease Model of Addiction as Fail/Safe from Moral Blame (Gabriel Lake Carter)

AFTERNOON BREAK: 3:45-4

4-5:15 Panel 6: Navigating Risk, Extreme Weather, and Climate Change                                            

  • Identifying Risk Thresholds to Promote Increased Safety in Extreme Weather Communication (Kat Lambrecht, Lynda Olman, and Meghan Collins)
  • Where Is the Safest Place from Climate Change? (Lauren Cagle)