Parrish, Alex 200x200 image

 

Associate Professor
Year Started at JMU: 2012
parrisac@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/alexcparrish/

Education

Ph.D., English, Rhetoric and Composition, Washington State University, 2012

M.A., Interdisciplinary Studies, York University, 2008  

B.F.A., Creative and Professional Writing, Bemidji State University, 2006 

Professional Focuses

The history of rhetoric, animal rhetorics, environmental communication, the rhetoric of science and the science of rhetoric.

Publications

Monographs

The Sensory Modes of Animal Rhetorics: A Hoot in the Light. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

- Reviewed in The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics

Adaptive Rhetoric: Evolution, Culture, and the Art of Persuasion. Studies in Rhetoric and Communication. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. https://www.routledge.com/Adaptive-Rhetoric-Evolution-Culture-and-the-Art-of-Persuasion/Parrish/p/book/9780415727518 

- Reviewed in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment; Language & Dialogue; Choice; Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture.

Edited Collections

Alex Parrish and Kristian Bjørkdahl (eds.). Rhetorical Animals: Boundaries of the Human in the Study of Persuasion. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2017.

Articles, Book chapters, Proceedings

"The Development of Persuasive Communication: Animals and the Evolved Mind” in The Routledge Handbook on Language and Persuasion, edited by Jeanne Fahnestock and Randy Allen Harris. London: Taylor & Francis. 2023. 

"Banal Classicism and Borrowed Ethos in the Rhetorics of Human and Nonhuman Animals" in Evolution and Popular Narrative, edited by Dirk Vanderbeke and Brett Cooke. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. 2019.

"Rhetoric and the Animal Turn: Addressing the Challenges of a Cross-Species Art of Persuasion" in Rhetorics Change/Rhetoric's Change, edited by Jenny Rice and Chelsea Graham Anderson, SC: Parlor Press and Intermezzo. 2018.

"'Don't Try to Kid Me, Mancub': Re-Animaling Rhetoric in Theory and Practice." Rhetoric Society Quarterly vol. 47, no. 3. 2017: 215-221.

Walsh, Lynda, et alia (Contributing Author). "The Great Chain of Being: Manifesto on the Problem of Agency in Science Communication." Poroi, vol.12, no.1. 2016: Article 2.

"Evolution in the English Department: the Biocultural Paradigms of Literary Darwinism and Adaptive Rhetoric." Literature Compass, vol. 11, no. 9. 2014: 649-656.

"The (Instinctual) Art of Persuasion." The Evolutionary Review, vol.4. no. 1. 2013: 57-66.

"Additional Advice for Choosing Your Graduate Committee." What We Wish We'd Known: Negotiating Graduate School, edited by Ryan Skinnell and Judy Holliday. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press, 2013.

"Adaptive Rhetoric: Ethos and Evolved Behavior in Cicero's De Oratore."Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy, edited by Antonio de Velasco and Melody Lehn. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2010: 132-141.

"Wampeters, NOMA, and Granfalloons." Pompeii. Spring 2010.

Book Reviews

“Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation,” by Debra Hawhee. Rhetoric Review, vol. 36, no. 4. 2017: 379-382.

"Perspectives on Human-Animal Communication: Internatural Communication," edited by Emily Plec. Journal for Critical Animal Studies vol. 12, no. 4. 2014:157-164.

"The Present State of Scholarship in the History of Rhetoric: A Twenty-First Century Guide," edited by Winifred Bryan Horner and Lynee Lewis Gaillet. JAC vol. 31, nos. 1& 2. 2011.

Review Essays

"Rhetoric" Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture vol. 6, no. 1 (2022): 151-154.                                   Reviewing:

Chirindo, Kundai. 2021. "Rhetoric and Integrationism: In Search of Rapprochement." In Integrational Linguistics and Philosophy of Language in the Global South, edited by D.P. Verity, & Kaiper-Marquez, 122-36. London: Routledge.
Clary-Lemon, Jennifer. November, 2020. “Examining Material Rhetorics of Species at Risk: Infrastructural Mitigations as Non-Human Arguments." Enculturation
Rosenfeld, Cynthia. 2021. "Bowers of Persuasion: Toward a Posthuman Visual Rhetoric." In Posthumanist Perspectives on Literary and Cultural Animals, edited by Krishanu Maiti, 75-86. Cham: Springer International Publishing

Encyclopedia Articles

"Evolution." The Encyclopedia of American Environmental History, edited by Kathleen Brosnan. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2010.

Media Appearances

“Defining Hierarchy” video presentation for Animals and Society Institute. August 13, 2019. https://www.animalsandsociety.org/human-animal-studies/defining-human-animal-studies-an-asi-video-project/defining-hierarchy-with-alex-parrish/

"Animal Intersections: Nonhuman Persons" nationally broadcast interview on public radio program With Good Reason. April 29, 2017. http://withgoodreasonradio.org/episode/animal-intersections/?t=00:09:20

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