Contributors

Lead Author/Editor

• Atilla Hallsby is an assistant professor in the Communication Studies department in the Rhetorical Studies area at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. My research program is about how rhetoric shapes public perceptions about secrecy, transparency, and artificial intelligence in American public culture. This book emerged as an extension of his undergraduate teaching in rhetorical theory and topics courses on the secrecy, surveillance, and algorithmic culture. Other teaching resources can be found at his newsletter site, which contains materials on the rhetoric of secrecy and surveillance and primers for graduate-level rhetorical theory. He is the author of all chapters that do not list an author (or authors).

Chapter Authors

“The Public Sphere”

• Angela M. McGowan-Kirsch (Ph.D., The University of Southern Mississippi) is an associate professor of communication at SUNY Fredonia and recipient of the 2023 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. As chair of the university’s American Democracy Project committee, she promotes civic engagement while teaching rhetoric, communication theory, and political communication courses. Her scholarship has been published in esteemed journals, including the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Atlantic Journal of Communication, Journal of Communication Pedagogy, and Communication Teacher. She is also the editor of Encouraging College Students’ Democratic Engagement in an Era of Political Polarization (Lexington Books, 2025), highlighting her dedication to fostering democratic participation.

“Counterpublics”

• Carlos A. Flores (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at California State University (CSU) – Sacramento, where he teaches rhetorical theory and criticism at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Specifically, Dr. Flores’ focuses on critical-cultural rhetorical theory with special attention to rhetorics emanating from vernacular communities and collectives that resist dominant ideologies. Prior to CSU Sacramento, Dr. Flores studied under the late Dr. Daniel Brouwer, a scholar who made significant contributions to the study of rhetoric, publics, and counterpublics. Thanks to Dr. Brouwer’s keen mentorship, Dr. Flores has successfully co-authored rhetorical works in venues such as New Media & Society and the edited collection, Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall: Displaced and Ephemeral Public Memories.
• Sarah E. Jones (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is an Assistant Professor at Ohio University where she studies the power and politics of gender in organizations through critical-qualitative methodologies. Her primary research on the milk banking industry has been featured on WOUB’s Defining Moments podcast and earned Management Communication Quarterly’s 2022 Article of the Year Award (co-authored with Dr. Sarah J. Tracy). Dr. Jones’ work has also been published in journals such as Health Communication and Feminist Pedagogy; volumes such as Queer Communication Pedagogy and the Routledge Handbook of Communication and Bullying; and public outlets such as Utah Tech University’s Red Rock Relationships podcast. She is a certified facilitator with StoryScope (an affiliate of the U.S. Department of Arts & Culture) and the Institute for Civil Dialogue, which she regularly utilizes in both classroom and community spaces.

“Latine Rhetorical Theory”

• Robert Mejia is a lecturer of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research explores the intersections of media, technology, and culture. His work has been published in journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Rhetoric of Health & Medicine as well as edited books. Mejia is a co-editor of the special issue “Rhetoric and the Abolitionist Horizon: Endings, Openings, Ruptures, Beginnings” in the journal of Rhetoric, Politics & Culture.
• Diana Isabel Martínez is an associate professor of communication at Pepperdine University. Her research explores physical and psychological borderlands, a term coined by Gloria Anzaldúa to describe spaces of social, political, and cultural struggle. Her work has been published in journals such as Western Journal of Communication, Communication Quarterly and The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics as well as edited books. She co-edited the monograph Latina/o/x Communication Studies: Theories, Methods, and Practice. Martínez’s latest book is Rhetorics of Nepantla, Memory, and the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers: Archival Impulses.

Content Contributors

• Dr. Michael Lechuga researches and teaches Latina/o/x Studies Communication Studies, Rhetoric, Migration and Settler Colonialism Studies, and Affect Studies. His research explores the ways migrants and migrant communities are subjected in the US by austere migration control structures and white nationalist ideologies. His current research focuses on the role that technology plays in border security assemblages and the ways alienhood is mapped onto migrant bodies through contemporary mechanisms of white-settler governance. His recorded lecture, “Incomunicable,” originally delivered at the Hugh Downs School of Communication at Arizona State University, appears in the chapter on  Settler Colonial Rhetoric(s).
• Dr. Emily Winderman specializes in the rhetorical study of a wide range of reproductive healthcare, including birth control, family planning, abortion care, and birthing practices. She generally approaches these topical areas through the theoretical affordances of affect theory and public emotion, rhetorical history, and public address. Specifically, her work asks “what emotions do” in order to constitute, shape, and manage different publics’ relationships to health. Her recorded lecture on “The Narrative Paradigm” appears in the chapter on Rhetoric and Narrative.

Editors and Editorial Assistants

• This book was only possible because of Shane Nackerud and Tina Tram of the University of Minnesota Libraries, who transitioned this manuscript from the blog where it was originally posted. They formatted and edited each of these chapters, sought permissions, and found most of the images that are displayed here. Their labor is the reason why this book exists and I am greatly indebted to them for their semesters-long effort in creating this resource.
• Makayla Hillukka was a Spring 2022 Dean’s First-Year Research & Creative Scholars (DFRACS) fellow and undergraduate research assistant for the UnTextbook at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities. Makayla’s recorded readings appear in Chapter 12: The Secrecy Situation and Chapter 14: The Digital Situation.
• Milena Yishak was a Spring 2022 Dean’s First-Year Research & Creative Scholars (DFRACS) fellow and undergraduate research assistant for the UnTextbook at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities. Milena’s recorded readings appear in Chapter 8: Rhetoric and Narrative and Chapter 14: The Digital Situation.