Rhetoric and Risk

The discoveries of science and technology are accelerating. The choice of how to regulate and react to scientific and technological innovations relies heavily on the notion of risk. The emergence nature contemporary science and technology (i.e., complex systems that are not reducible to the simple physical and chemical processes from which they arose) confounds risk studies (Goodenough & Deacon, 2006). Indeed, whether to embark on a particular path of scientific inquiry or proceed with a technological development depends on the ability to calculate the amount of risk associated with the endeavor. We are, however, ill-equipped to resolve the demands of risk analysis with certainty

Engenderneered Machines in Science Fiction Film

The fear that human creations might backfire and attack their creators has been a mainstay of science fiction at least since Mary Shelley?s Frankenstein. The misgivings become particularly acute when human-engineered imitations of human beings (i.e., robots and cyborgs) raise questions regarding how humans can be distinguished from machines. Assumptions about gender also infuse the ways humans conceive and react to their mechanical progeny (i.e., robots and cyborgs). Whenever human-like creations are embodied, they encounter the fundamental bodily quality of sexuality. The cinematic exploration "fleshes out" how posthuman technological innovations are engendered in their engineering. By problematizing the roles that gender can play in the very conceptions of what counts as human or machine, gender constructions infuse technological innovation in various challenging ways. "Engenderneering" may be understood as the construction or interpretation of a gender- neutral object so that its gender becomes part of its essence. This personification, far from merely personifying an object, engenders the object by making gender roles and expectations central to how humans interact with non-human (usually also interpreted as less-than-human) entities. For example, ships have been christened traditionally as female, the reliable (i.e., motherly) bearers that keep passengers afloat upon the amniotic oceans. Gender is already so intertwined with human experience that the terra "engender"—aside from its intransitive sense of attributing sexual identity—acquires its primary meaning as a synonym for creation itself. Anna Balsamo (1996) laments that new technologies such as virtual reality simply "reproduce, in high-tech guise, traditional narratives about the gendered, race-marked body" (132). In the case of science fiction films, the project of engenderneering is rarely innovative. Instead, the emergence of new machines and forms of life leave basically intact the familiar stories of "proper" feminine roles

The Forum: Peer Review as the Enforcement of Disciplinary Orthodoxy

Recently Omar Swartz (1997) solicited further discussion regarding Blair, Brown, and Baxter's article "Disciplining the Feminine" that appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Speech three years ago. I remember reading Blair, Brown, and Baxter's article with exultation. Finally, well-established scholars openly discussed the unstated ideological foundations-in this case, the "male paradigm" (Blair, Brown, and Baxter, 1994, p. 389-395)-underlying two hallowed institutions: the standards of scholarly achievement and the practice of peer review. The authors used two artifacts to show how disciplinary boundaries are established and maintained: Hickson et al.'s (1992) report on research productivity of female scholars in communication and the reviewers' comments regarding an earlier version of Blair, Brown, and Baxter's article. Although Blair, Brown, and Baxter have called attention to two scholarly practices (measurements of scholarly productivity and peer review), I concentrate on peer review because it serves as the primary mechanism for authorizing what counts as legitimate research. Scholarly research that has passed the gauntlet of peer review, therefore, appears in publications perhaps less to convey new information than to declare that such research carries the seal of approval from academic gatekeepers (Crane, 1972, p. 122). Usually the values of information and certification do not conflict. Problems arise, however, when innovative research is significant because it violates disciplinary norms and expectations

The “net worth” of applied learning: How Holocaust survivors counter educational consumerism

Shrinking financial support for higher education has renewed interest in market-based approaches that define education as a consumer transaction. This model fails to acknowledge many character-based dimensions of experiential learning. Testimonies from Holocaust survivors reveal three habits of character not captured by educational models that focus primarily on efficiency: embracing personal agency, readiness to act in the face of uncertainty, and creative adaptability that builds resilience to setbacks

Consequences of Commodifying Education

Ongoing concerns about budgets and accountability have accelerated tendencies to model education after the values of the free market, prioritizing efficiency and customer satisfaction while treating education itself as a commercial transaction. Adopting this framework frays the moral fabric of education and shortchanges students who are configured as consumers to please rather than characters to build

Re-searching my scar: Interrogating otherness in The Searchers and in my racial rearing

This essay juxtaposes the process of “Othering” in the 1956 John Ford western The Searchers with my own indoctrination into White privilege as a child growing up in suburban Atlanta during the mid-to-late 1960s. The film’s stark portrayal of anti-Native American attitudes confronts the problematic construction of the non-White racial “Other” in westerns as a threat to racial and sexual purity. Its relentless pursuit of the implications of racism triggers my own confrontation with the subtle but persistent degradations of African Americans in my upbringing

“Refining the Question: How Can Online Instruction Maximize Opportunities for All Students?

Although research on computer-assisted and online instruction abounds, researchers have expressed concern about the lack of theoretical frameworks for these studies (Timmerman & Kruepke, 2006). While ample research documents learning outcomes in individual courses, few attempts have been made to link computer-assisted or fully computer-mediated instruction with philosophical concerns pertinent to media, education, or cognition. Ironically, the same issue of the journal that contained this lament (Communication Education) included a major step toward its remedy. In the first of the series of essays published in this journal, called “Raising the Question,” Allen (2006, p. 122) asked whether online instruction is “setting our students up for failure” by depriving them of the social and intellectual stimulation present at the physical college campus. I seek to expand the discussion by going beyond the dichotomy of online versus on-campus instruction to probe when and why online instruction might be desirable. This essay addresses Allen's (2006) concerns about online instruction and student retention, extending the dialogue to examine how online coursework may reach students who might be bypassed by the traditional classroom instruction. The central issue for Allen (2006) and for me is how to offer online instruction according to the principles of effective pedagogy