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Research

My research program is primarily concerned with rhetoric surrounding homelessness and poverty in the United States. I write about both how homeless is represented in pop culture and how it appears in public policy conversations. To conduct this research, I supplement traditional rhetorical analysis with qualitative methods like interviews and focus groups.
 
I welcome opportunities for research collaboration related to rhetoric, homelessness and/or housing policy.
 
Journal Articles

"'Not in My Back Yard': Democratic Rhetorics in Spatial Gatekeeping." (2022). Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 140-157.

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"The Public Screen as Contextual Field: Visibility and Agency in U.S. Films About Homelessness." (2022). Quarterly Journal of Speech Vol. 108, no. 1. Co-authored with Melanie Loehwing.

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"A Mystery Approach to Criticism." (2021). Communication Teacher Vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 109-113.

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"Moving Beyond Validity in Rhetorical Studies." (2020). Annals of the International Communication Association Vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 201-209.  Co-authored with Emily Sauter and Daniel Cronn-Mills.

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"Reconsidering Symbolic Use: A Situational Model of the Use of Research Evidence in Polarised Legislative Hearings." (2019). Evidence & Policy Vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 525-541. Co-authored with Robert Asen.

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"'Expensive' People: Consumer Citizenship and the Construction of Neoliberal Publics." (2018). Communication and the Public Vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 190-204.

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"When Homelessness Becomes a 'Luxury': Neutrality as an Obstacle to Counterpublic Rights Claims." (2017). Quarterly Journal of Speech Vol. 103, no. 3, pp. 230-250.

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“Tokenism and Cultural (Mis)Recognition in ‘The Man with the Golden Voice.’” (2017). Howard Journal of Communications Vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 217-233.

Research Interests
  • How advocacy messages move through (and/or are obstructed in) public policymaking processes.
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  • How local communities negotiate policy controversy via public deliberation.
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  • Research use in advocacy and policymaking.
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  • Popular media representations of homelessness and poverty.
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  • The intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, etc., in representations of homelessness.
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  • Public sphere theory, deliberative theory, social movements + activist rhetoric, and more.
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