Books by Christopher S Carter
The Rhetoric of Dystopia develops an idea of “emergent metalepsis” that describes the uncanny mom... more The Rhetoric of Dystopia develops an idea of “emergent metalepsis” that describes the uncanny moments where fictive texts anticipate material events, blurring the boundary between the storyworld and the world of reception. Christopher Carter treats dystopia as rhetoric that shapes collective identities while speeding across platforms and geopolitical borders, at once critiquing and exemplifying the circulation of power relations through varied modes. This rhetoric features rampant viruses, authoritarian governments, corporate behemoths, corrupt educational and scientific institutions, and brutal policing, sometimes amplifying existing trends and sometimes merely documenting them. From Bong Joon-ho to Reed Morano, Octavia Butler to Richard McGuire, artists proffer arguments whose gravity we often fail to register, thus calling into question the uses of media literacy in an age of looming cataclysm. Carter situates this rhetoric within scholarship on literacy, built environments, border policies, global food production, and the Anthropocene.
The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with th... more The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms. The WAC Clearinghouse, Colorado State University Open Press, and University Press of Colorado are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print editions. The publishers and the Series editors are committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy.
Choice Reviews Online, 2016
WAC Clearinghouse, 2021
Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods explores multiple antiracist, decolonial forms of study that... more Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods explores multiple antiracist, decolonial forms of study that are relevant to 21st-century knowledge production about language, communication, technology, and culture. The book presents a rare collaboration among scholars representing different racial and ethnic backgrounds, genders, and ranks within the field of Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies (RCWS). In each chapter, the authors examine the significance of their individual experiences with race and racism across contexts. Their research engages the politics of embodiment, institutional critique, multimodal rhetoric, materiality, and public digital literacies. The book merges impassioned storytelling with unflinching analysis, offering a multi-voiced argument that spotlights the field's troubled history with theorizing about race and epistemology. Although the authors directly address aspiring and current RCWS professionals, they model how a comprehensive consideration of race adds legitimacy and integrity to any subject of study. This co-authored work charts uncommon paths forward, demonstrating reflexive engagement with legacies that are personal and transnational, as well as with technologies that are both dehumanizing and liberating.
Papers by Christopher S Carter
College English, Nov 1, 2008
President Donald Trump and his Political Discourse, 2018
Education as Civic Engagement
The seal ofNew York University features the motto perstare et praestare ("to persevere and to exc... more The seal ofNew York University features the motto perstare et praestare ("to persevere and to excel") below an image of classical runners in competition. Above the runners hovers the torch ofliberty. According to the school website, the athletes represent the "pursuit of academic excellence," while the torch designates NYU's service to the metropolis. Even as the seal draws multiple, positively-coded signifiers into its rhetoric of achievement, it harbors secrets about the purposes of its institution. To what end the university perseveres, where it excels, and how its activities serve the city remain undefined. Although NYU provides a striking example of a private research university in pursuit of excellence, schools throughout the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education use similar language to describe their missions. 1 The idea of excellence extends across classifications-alongside concepts like service, accountability, and flexibility-and it typically connotes the viability of higher education in the global marketplace. As the NYU seal suggests, excellence evokes classical competition: to excel is to fare well in the race. What the seal does not say directly, and what my analysis of institutional literature from various sectors of the Carnegie Classification helps reveal, is that the race reproduces meritocratic ideology, upholding the fiction of evenly matched participants while naturalizing their rivalry. 2 In associating excellence with ideological reproduction, I hope both to evoke Bill Readings's The University in Ruins and to distinguish my argument from his. In what is still the best analysis of how excellence functions in higher education, he notes the term's prevalence in Maclean's college rankings, in assessments of faculty and student performance, in campus resource evaluations, and in rationales for departmental cutbacks-to name some of its more troubling locations. It is troubling not jac 25.2 (2005)
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Books by Christopher S Carter
Papers by Christopher S Carter