Education
Ph.D. Rhetoric and Composition, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX. August 2017. Dissertation: New black boxes: Technologically mediated intercultural rhetorical encounters on the U.S.-Mexico border. Committee: Lucía Durá (Director), Kate Mangelsdorf, Char Ullman
Th.M. Systematic Theology, Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL. May 2008. Thesis: What does Basel have to do with Jerusalem? Barth and Van Til revisited. Committee: Kevin Vanhoozer, Graham Cole
M. Div., Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL. May 2007. Concentration: Cross-Cultural Ministry
B.A. Theater Arts, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX. Minor: English. December 2000
Th.M. Systematic Theology, Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL. May 2008. Thesis: What does Basel have to do with Jerusalem? Barth and Van Til revisited. Committee: Kevin Vanhoozer, Graham Cole
M. Div., Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL. May 2007. Concentration: Cross-Cultural Ministry
B.A. Theater Arts, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX. Minor: English. December 2000
Dissertation Summary
In my dissertation, New black boxes: Technologically mediated intercultural rhetorical encounters, I suggest a unique way to study intercultural professional communication occurring via ever proliferating communication technologies. Activity Theory (AT) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) have increasingly been used to analyze and frame the study of writing, particularly in technical and professional communication (Bazerman and Russell, 2003; Mcnely et al., 2012; Spinuzzi, 2003, 2008, 2013, 2015; Swarts, 2013). While rhetoric and composition studies generally—and technical and professional communication in particular—have always been concerned with culture and its impact on the rhetorical situation, very few studies have sought to utilize these theoretical frames on technologically mediated intercultural rhetoric. As rhetorical situations in technical and professional communication continue to be impacted by globalization and the proliferation of communication technologies, more precise study of work practices in these contexts is needed. Using AT as the primary means to stabilize “for now” complex, intercultural rhetorical encounters in a professional context and supplementing my analysis of that moment with questions raised by ANT, I show the ways in which communication technologies (email, phone, IM chat, texting applications) define and transform intercultural rhetorical encounters. Conversely I illustrate how individuals rhetorically engage perceived cultural others using those same communication technologies in these encounters. Utilizing observations, interviews, and artifact collection conducted at a small company with an administrative office in El Paso, Texas in the United States, a factory just across the border in Juaréz, Mexico, and their customers in the Midwest United States, I demonstrate how communication technologies increasingly define and mediate intercultural rhetorical encounters. Telecommunication tools, especially software applications like WhatsApp, intermediate activity related communication by placing cultural others in temporally immediate proximity enabling, in principle, speedy resolution of objective related questions, problems, and concerns. At the same time, however, these technologies mediate this communication by creating conceptual voids or “silences” into which participants are forced to render or “invent” cultural others as they make rhetorical choices when communicating via technology. And yet, close analysis of particular instances of technologically mediated communication suggests that participants revert predominantly to reflecting on the material conditions of the object or objective-oriented activity as opposed to explicit cultural stereotypes as a means of explaining the situation to themselves when making rhetorical choices amidst technologically mediated communication.