| Associate Professor Department of Languages & Literatures david.grant@uni.edu |
1049 Bartlett Hall |
Ph.D. English Rhetoric & Composition, August 2007. University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Dissertation: Toward Sustainable Literacies: An Empirical Study of Journal Writing in an Ecocomposition Course.
M.A. English Rhetoric & Composition, December 1999. Northern Arizona University.
Thesis: Hozho: A Navajo Cultural Concept for the Writing Classroom.
B.A. English, August 1993. Winona State University.
Associate Professor, University of Northern Iowa, July 2013 – present.
Coordinator of Writing Programs 2013-2016.
Assistant Professor, University of Northern Iowa, July 2007 – July 2013.
Coordinator of Writing Programs 2008-2013.
Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Wisconsin – Madison, August 2002 – May 2007.
Online Writing Center Instructor, 2006-2007.
Writing Center Instructor, 2004-2005.
Adjunct Instructor, Winona State University, August 2000 – July 2002.
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Northern Arizona University, August 1997 – December 1999.
Grants, Honors, and Awards
UNI Graduate College Certificate of Appreciation for serving as judge for Graduate Student Symposium.
UNI Service Learning Grant ($500) in partnership with Waterloo Writing Project, 2018.
Diversity grant ($250) for student trip to Meskwakie Community in Tama, IA, 2017.
Professional Development Assignment for “Rhetorical Education: A Handbook for Thinking and
Communicating in College and Beyond,” 2015.
UNI Assessment Grant ($1080), 2013.
UNI Assessment Grant ($500), 2011.
UNI Experiential Learning Grant ($200), for student trip to inipi ceremony, Houston, MN, 2008.
Refereed Conference Proceeding
Book Reviews
Pedagogical Material
Decolonial Conversations in Posthuman and New Material Rhetorics
This co-edited collection brings together emerging and established voices at the nexus of new materialist and decolonial rhetorics to forward a new direction for rhetorical scholarship on materiality. Through four thematic sections, established and emerging scholars weave together accepted and marginalized discourses in order to offer multiple ways to enact decoloniality in rhetoric, communication, and writing studies. Proposal accepted at Ohio State University Press.
Rhetoric and Relations: Beyond Constructivist Theories of Rhetorical Activity.
This monograph project focuses on indigenous philosophies of relations to re-examine theories and applications of rhetoric that move beyond construction, constructivist, and other metaphors of building and linear cause and effect. I take a comparative approach to show potentials and pitfalls in aligning indigenous relations with process-relational philosophies of EuroAmerica. While both admit relata as emergent from prior relations, easy comparisons are dangerous as EuroAmerican philosophies like new materialisms are still subject to the extractive tendencies of settler colonialism. The project mitigates those dangers through revising rhetorical pedagogy as cultivating potential in one’s availability to the emergent. This decenters agency, looks to the ecology of exigence, and understands rhetoric in a more complex, virtual temporality. In Discussion with U of Pittsburgh Press.
Service Learning Coordinator, Intermediate Composition. 2003 – 2004
Coordinated Service-Learning Opportunities for instructors with Morgridge Center for Public Service, maintained resource library, assisted graduate TAs integrating service learning into their courses.
Outreach Member, UW-Madison Writing Center. 2004 – 2006
Described Writing Center and WAC pedagogy, philosophy, and expectations to students in non-English writing courses, worked with faculty to provide special topic sessions (e.g., APA citation, evaluating and using internet sources).
Assessment Consultant. Spring 2002
Tabulated department assessment results, conducted interviews with exiting majors, composed final report.
National, Peer-reviewed Conferences
2020. Roundtable Respondent, “Standing Among Stories: Commonplaces and Crossroads.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Milwaukee, WI.
--- “The Rise of Writing in Secondary School Intra-Actions.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Milwaukee, WI.
2019. Rhetoric Society of America Project in Power, Place, and Publics. “Memory and Lost Communities” working group. Reno, NV.
2018. “Being/Taken.” Cultural Rhetorics Conference. East Lansing, MI.
2018. “Alien Persuasion Extraterrestrials, Otherness, and the Rhetoric of Speculative Futures.” Rhetoric Society of America, Minneapolis, MN.
2018. “Astrological Topoi: Casting a Chart for Contemporary Rhetorical Historiography.” Rhetoric Society of America, Minneapolis, MN.
2016. “Writing Wakan: A Lakota Rhetoric of Networks.” Rhetoric Society of America, Atlanta, GA.
2015. “Literacy as a Speculative Endeavor.” Conference of College Composition and Communication, Tampa, FL.
2014. “Blurring Pedagogical Borders: Integrating Writing and Speaking in a First-Year Course.” Rhetoric Society of America, San Antonio, TX.
2014. “Open Sources: Lakota Things as (New) Media.” Conference of College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis, IN.
2012. “Craft, Plentitude, and Negation: Delivery in Post-Consumer Rhetorics.” Rhetoric Society of America, Philadelphia, PA.
2010. “Rhetoric and Recreation: Khora and the Labor/ Leisure of Posthuman Agency.” Rhetorical Society of America. Minneapolis, MN.
2010. “Why Work?: Remixing Rhetoric-Composition as Re-creation.” Conference of College Composition and Communication. Louisville, KY.
2009. “1994: Un Pli: Politics, Pop, and Postprocess Ecologies.” Conference of College Composition and Communication. San Francisco, CA.
2008. “Writing with Trickster and Wonder: Journal Writing in a Changing Reality.” Conference of College Composition and Communication. New Orleans, LA.
2006. “Toward Sustainable Literacies: An Empirical Study in Ecocomposition.” Conference of College Composition and Communication. Chicago, IL.
2005. “Sustainable Literacies: Ecofeminism and a Biological Turn for Composition.” Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s). Houghton, MI.
2001. "Borders into the Wild: Sigurd Olson and the Practice of Mestiza Consciousness." Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Flagstaff, AZ.
2000. "Pedagogies of a Diverse Landscape: Teaching and the Academy in the American Southwest." Conference on College Composition and Communication. Minneapolis, MN.
Regional and Local Conferences
2015. “Craft and Response: A Wedding of Rhetoric and Poetic.” North American Review Bicentennial Conference, Cedar Falls, IA.
2008. "From Representation to Recreation: Who Speaks for the Trees?" Iowa Communication Association. Waterloo, IA.
2007. “Writing Challenges: Embodied and Ecological Rhetorics in Journal Writing.” Third Annual MnSCU Writing Conference. White Bear Lake, MN.
2005. “Sustainable Literacy: A Case Study of Writing Identity and Agency through Ecocomposition.” Midwest Modern Language Association. Milwaukee, WI.
2004. “Placing Things in Time: Using Chronotopes in Ecocomposition.” MnSCU Writing Conference. Mankato, MN.
2003. “Crossing Horizons: Student Learning in the Ecocomposition Classroom.” Sustainable Feminisms: Enacting Theories, Envisioning Action. Macalester College, St. Paul, MN.
2016. “Publics, Rhetorics, and Democratic Agency.” Pint with a Prof hosted by UNI Freethinkers and Inquirers.
2011. “Native American Literature and Liberal Arts.” Kaplan University, Cedar Falls Campus.
2011 “Portfolio for Programmatic Assessment of Writing.” A Conversation with John Zubizaretta. University of Northern Iowa.
2011. “Post-structuralism, Environmental Rhetoric, and the Architecture of the World.” Burrow Infoshop. Winona, MN.
2001. "Tricksters in Native American Poetry." WSU Native American Appreciation Day. Winona, MN. November 8.
Graduate Theses (M.A.)
2018 (Chair) Jeremy Roberts. “Absences and Affect: Public Memory at the Oklahoma City
National Memorial.”
James Keene. “Writing Cognitively Dissonant Characters in Fiction.”
2015 Marci Swank, “Revitalizing the Hip-Hop and Christian Cultures: Lecrae’s Unashamed
Use of the Rap Narrative, Persona, and Language.”
2013 Mason Beets, “Postmodern Humanism and ‘The Exhaustion of Easy Life.’”
2011 Justin Roberts, “Dystopian Reality Game Shows: Reading the Television Landscapes of The Long Walk, The Running Man, and Smash TV.”
2011 (Co-Chair) Jason Bradford, “Oikos or Proof or Discursive Trees or Something Else.”
2011 Deborah Young, “Examining Gender and Ethnicity Through the Work of Julia
Alvarez.”
2008 Tobias Veeder, “The Scapegoated Mother Theme in William Faulkner and Toni
Morrison.”
Graduate Research Papers (M.A.)
2018 (Chair) Elizabeth Dickhut. “e is for Erotica: The Romance Novel, Religious Inspirational
Fiction, and Digital Social Spaces.”
2011 Cara Doak, “Response and Revision with Technology.”
Undergraduate Theses (B.A.)
2019 (Chair) Lucy Conroy, Individual Studies Writing Major Portfolio Project.
2019 Anna Flanders, Individual Studies Writing Major Portfolio Project.
2014 (Chair) Amanda Arp, “Effective Teaching Practices in Written Composition.”
UNI University Service
2019-present Faculty Interdisciplinary Committee.
2017-present Faculty Sustainability Advisory Board, University of Northern Iowa.
2010-2019 Chair, University Writing Committee.
2017-2018 Secretary of Faculty, University of Northern Iowa.
2016 Quality Improvement Plan Recommendation Committee.
2016 Drafting Committee for Faculty Senate Statement of Academic Freedom.
2011-2012 Cornerstone Course Curriculum Committee.
2008 Co-Chair, Learning Dimension, UNI Foundations of Excellence Self-Study.
2008 McNair Scholar Mentor.
2008 Faculty Organizer, Focus the Nation UNI.
UNI College Service
2018 Think/Thrive Day Instructor for recruiting honors students.
2017 College Dean Search Committee.
UNI Department Service
2016-present Curriculum Committee.
2017-2018 Chair, Graduate Exam Committee.
2007-2016 Writing Committee (Chair 2008-2016).
University of Wisconsin - Madison
2006 Chair, UW-Madison Composition and Rhetoric Program Colloquium with Bruce Horner.
2005-2006 UW-Madison English Department Expository Writing Committee.
2003 Summer Institute for Writing Center Directors featuring Susan McLeod.
2003 Lead Organizer, “Iraq War Teach-In.”
Winona State University
2001-2002 Department Assessment Committee.
2000-2002 Faculty Advisor, WSU Student Green Party.
Professional Development Workshops Led
2019. Reading group leader for John Warner’s Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Niceties. UNI Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.
2017. “A Clockwork Orange, Man: Teaching in a Time of Fake News.” University of Northern Iowa Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.
2016. “Writing, Ecology, Embodiment.” UNICARES presentation. University of Northern Iowa Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.
Professional Development Seminars, Institutes & Workshops Attended
2018 RSA Career Retreat for Associate Professors. Minneapolis, MN.
2018 Writing Enriched (WEC) Institute, University of Minnesota.
2017 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute, “Rhetoric and the New Materialisms.” Bloomington, IN.
2015 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute, “Rhetoric and Indigineity.” Madison, WI.
2013 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute, “Rhetoric In/Between Communication
and English.” Lawrence, KS.
2010 CCCC Workshop, “Teaching Native American Cultures & Rhetorics.” Louisville, KY.
Relevant Community Service
2018 Board member, College Hill Farmer’s Market.
2017-18 Neighborhood Services Committee, College Hill Partnership.
2017-18 Volunteer Mentor, Waterloo Writing Project.
Rhetoric Society of America
National Council of Teachers of English
College Composition & Communication
AAUP- United Faculty