Clem Presented at Western States Communication Association 2020

Logan Clem, a second-year MA rhetoric and composition concentration student, traveled to Denver last month with funding under the English Graduate Travel Award to present his paper at the Western States Communication Association conference. 

He shared — “Last month, I attended the Western States Communication Association conference in Denver, CO. The conference theme was “communication, agitation, justice,” with an emphasis on communicating messages of hope and pursuing justice in especially trying times. I presented on a panel organized by the Environmental Communication Working Group. My paper, “‘Got to Be NC’: Selling and Consuming Place at the Raleigh Farmer’s Market” reported on a rhetorical ethnography I conducted at the State Farmer’s Market looking at how the interactions between shoppers and farmers work to develop (and complicate) ideas of local and civic identity. 

The conference was a Communications Studies one. English shares rhetorical studies with Communication, though we have some different approaches and methods. It was great to get interdisciplinary approaches to issues we discuss in rhetoric and composition, to see how another discipline applies some of the same theorists we rely on in our work, and to get a different perspective from audience feedback that will help expand and improve my research. I attended other panels put on by the Environmental Communication Working Group and got to see presentations by some scholars whose work inspired the paper I presented. I also received great feedback from the panel respondent.”

Congratulations to Logan on his achievement!