I'm many things: a writer, professor, researcher, independent scholar, public intellectual, conservationist, artist, and musician working in the Baltimore metropolitan region.
From 2007-2012, I served as the University of Baltimore's first full-time writing program administrator and, as Director of Expository Writing, helped establish its University Writing Program. From 2012-2018, I served as a Lecturer in the School of Communications Design at UB, teaching courses in various aspects of writing and literature, rhetoric, linguistics, journalism, film, and the arts. Prior to those appointments at UB, I was an Assistant Professor of English and Mass Communication at the Community College of Baltimore County, where I also served as Coordinator for The Center for Learning and Teaching Excellence and faculty adviser for the student newspaper.
I'm a writing, environmental, and film studies scholar who studies "fish tales" or "fishery discourse" through two distinct theoretical frameworks. The first draws interdisciplinarily upon scholarship in writing studies, grammatology, biosemiotics, posthumanism, and animal studies to examine how fish use "writing systems" to communicate. More specifically, I apply theories from the above fields to fish behaviors and fishery dynamics to learn more about how fish communicate. Additionally, my scholarship, positioned at the intersections of the environmental humanities and writing studies, develops a new approach to understanding human-fish relations - known as icthyoliteracy - that can help people better understand the extraordinary influence and agency fish have over human discourse and non-human communication.
The second draws upon my role as an ecocritic specializing in environmental rhetoric and discourse. I study how people write about the ecological "place" known as a fishery and how diverse, multimodal discourses—including literary, journalistic, cinematic, and scientific texts—influence how we conceptualize, regulate, and interact with fisheries, especially those in the Chesapeake Bay. I am deeply interested in how humans rhetorically and discursively construct fisheries in various media.
My research can help humans learn more about their own writing practices, particularly as they relate to embodied writing, inter-species communication, non-discursive communication, and related topics. My work also has direct applications to fishery conservation by elucidating our relationships to fish and untangling the complex representations we use to portray fish and fisheries. Ideally, my work provides a map for how humanities scholars can engage in more applied research.
Additionally, I have a background in film studies and study film genres (horror, film noir), visual representations of the monstrous, autuerism, the American New Wave, exploitation films, and ecomedia / ecotrauma films.
I write widely and publish frequently. My writing has appeared in numerous publications and presses. For more information about my work, please visit my Publications page.
From 2007-2012, I served as the University of Baltimore's first full-time writing program administrator and, as Director of Expository Writing, helped establish its University Writing Program. From 2012-2018, I served as a Lecturer in the School of Communications Design at UB, teaching courses in various aspects of writing and literature, rhetoric, linguistics, journalism, film, and the arts. Prior to those appointments at UB, I was an Assistant Professor of English and Mass Communication at the Community College of Baltimore County, where I also served as Coordinator for The Center for Learning and Teaching Excellence and faculty adviser for the student newspaper.
I'm a writing, environmental, and film studies scholar who studies "fish tales" or "fishery discourse" through two distinct theoretical frameworks. The first draws interdisciplinarily upon scholarship in writing studies, grammatology, biosemiotics, posthumanism, and animal studies to examine how fish use "writing systems" to communicate. More specifically, I apply theories from the above fields to fish behaviors and fishery dynamics to learn more about how fish communicate. Additionally, my scholarship, positioned at the intersections of the environmental humanities and writing studies, develops a new approach to understanding human-fish relations - known as icthyoliteracy - that can help people better understand the extraordinary influence and agency fish have over human discourse and non-human communication.
The second draws upon my role as an ecocritic specializing in environmental rhetoric and discourse. I study how people write about the ecological "place" known as a fishery and how diverse, multimodal discourses—including literary, journalistic, cinematic, and scientific texts—influence how we conceptualize, regulate, and interact with fisheries, especially those in the Chesapeake Bay. I am deeply interested in how humans rhetorically and discursively construct fisheries in various media.
My research can help humans learn more about their own writing practices, particularly as they relate to embodied writing, inter-species communication, non-discursive communication, and related topics. My work also has direct applications to fishery conservation by elucidating our relationships to fish and untangling the complex representations we use to portray fish and fisheries. Ideally, my work provides a map for how humanities scholars can engage in more applied research.
Additionally, I have a background in film studies and study film genres (horror, film noir), visual representations of the monstrous, autuerism, the American New Wave, exploitation films, and ecomedia / ecotrauma films.
I write widely and publish frequently. My writing has appeared in numerous publications and presses. For more information about my work, please visit my Publications page.