Brian J. McNely

Sound, on Flickr.

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Sound, on Flickr.

Vita

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Curriculum Vitae

Rhetorical Knowledge Work, on Flickr.

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Rhetorical Knowledge Work, on Flickr.

Publication Abstracts

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“Agency, Invention, and Sympatric Design Platforms,” Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication, ACM: 2007.

This project investigates the problems associated with course software platforms from the perspective of user-centered design, examining student agency and invention specifically in environments like WebCT, Wikis, and MS SharePoint 3.0. I argue for course design platforms that are structured on informed technogogies at the instructor and curricular levels. Drawing on concepts from biological evolution and anthropology, I propose that instructors, researchers, and administrators promote and create design platforms that are sympatric, that foster student agency and invention through user localization technologies that also embrace rhetorically complex social interaction. I further argue that researchers in Rhetoric and Writing Studies are particularly well positioned to write and/or co-create sympatric course platforms.

“La Frontera y El Chamizal: Liminality, Territoriality, and Visual Discourse.” The Responsibilities of Rhetoric, Proceedings of the 2008 Rhetoric Society of America Biennial Conference, Eds. Michelle Smith and Barbara Warnick (forthcoming—2009).

This study explores the Chamizal National Memorial and the U.S.-Mexico border (la frontera) from a rhetorical perspective, not strictly as a historical site of struggle (though that context is essential), but in terms of the ways in which these spaces are made to speak today in both dominant and counterhegemonic terms, through competing visual representations that reflect an oppositional ethos. One of the fundamental assumptions of this project is that visual and spatial rhetorics may be coterminous and overlapping, and that the construction of any place, or the analysis thereof, must consider both aspects simultaneously.

Therefore, in order to approach both the spatial and visual aspects of this contested region, I draw upon research in critical geography and rhetoric to explore the erasure of local historiographies at the site of the memorial as I work toward a rhetorical understanding of liminal spaces and territoriality that foregrounds the conflation of the spatial and the visual. I examine the Chamizal and the physical border as spatio-discursive locations, considering the ways in which the material reality of the built environment is used as a site of ventriloquism for competing interests in liminal and formerly liminal sites of struggle. I argue that the combination of physical territoriality and discursive spatialization creates rhetorical stratigraphies, layers of material and social strata that must be negotiated by inhabitants in liminal areas such as the El Paso/Juárez border.

“Cultivating Rhetorical Dispositions through Curricular Change.” Undergraduate Research in English Studies, Eds. Laurie Grobman and Joyce Kinkead (book chapter, forthcoming—2009).

Drawing upon recent work in Undergraduate Research as a curricular movement (Karukstis and Elgren, 2007), this chapter argues that programs and departments of Rhetoric, Writing, Technical Communication, and related fields should focus first and foremost on curricular change as a method of fostering meaningful udergraduate research, change which is inculcated at our institution by the development of rhetoric and writing courses that study rhetoric and writing itself.

At the center of this curricular philosophy for our redesign of the professional writing course is the concept of rhetorical dispositions, a method of heuristic thinking and doing cobbled together from several sources, including the idea of “learning dispositions” that originated in educational research, the “durable, transposable discpositions” of Bourdieu (1977), and the “rhetorical aptitudes” of Faber (2002). Properly realized, the concept of rhetorical dispositions is simultaneously a curricular and pedagogical approach that promotes metacognition and complex rhetorical thinking, and gives our undergraduate students both a grounding in theories of rhetoric essential to effective communication in the contempoarary workplace, and the opportunity to become participant researchers in our field. I describe the importance of drawing upon our field’s own disciplinary content, its relationship to the concept of rhetorical dispositions, and the programmatic curricular change that grew out of such an approach. Most importantly, I describe the impact that such curricular change has upon our undergraduate students as researchers and knowledge workers, how our workplace writing course has been transformed as a site for fostering meaningful inquiry that can contribute to our disciplinary knowledge.

Photo

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Dissertation Research

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Un/Commonplaces: Redirecting Research and Curricula in Rhetoric and Writing Studies

Committee:

Dr. Helen Foster, Director, Rhetoric and Writing Studies Program

Dr. Carlos Salinas, Rhetoric and Writing Studies Program

Dr. Robert Nachtmann, Dean, College of Business Administration

Dissertation Abstract:

Un/Commonplaces is guided by a broad and fundamental question of inquiry regarding writing and disciplinary research: how can some of the predominant ways that our discipline has approached writing be retheorized to better approximate the complexity of contemporary rhetorical knowledge work? A corollary inquiry explores the resonances with English Studies that persist—and seeks to uncover how they persist—in our field. I argue that we can negotiate such issues by tracing and troubling some of our core disciplinary commonplaces, those commonsense notions and practices too frequently and easily adopted from English Studies and perpetuated within the often tumultuous and hegemonic relationship between our disciplines. I ground my research in these commonplaces, tracing their adoption and proliferation, while arguing that their long term effects have been and continue to be potentially stifling to knowledge work in our field.

Specifically, my project examines commonplace notions of text and intertextuality, the idea that “writing is recursive,” the disciplinary identification and preoccupation with composition rather than writing, and the historical privileging of pedagogy over (and often in lieu of) curriculum development. In tracing these commonplaces, I also work to establish new directions for our research that are sometimes grounded in our own, often overlooked disciplinary theory, while also moving outside of the humanities in search of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

I am interested in rhetoric’s relationship to epistemological development, but I am also explicitly concerned with issues of transfer and rhetoric’s role in the management and movement of knowledge. To that end, I foreground issues of technology in my research, exploring social networking applications, ubiquitous computing technologies, course delivery platforms and professional intranets, and the extensibility and circulation of information.

Garden, on Flickr.

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Garden, on Flickr.

Teaching Philosophy

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Pedagogical Approaches

Bikes, on Flickr.

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Bikes, on Flickr.

What (some) Students Have To Say

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“He made the material engaging and he explained it in such a way that didn’t make us all feel like idiots. I learned so much, which sometimes in other courses doesn’t happen very much. Thanks! =)”

Sophomore Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication Student

“I learned more that I expected. This has been one of the most enjoyable classes I have taken, learned a lot and had fun.”

Sophomore Research and Critical Writing Student, Spring 2007

“You are a good teacher & I loved taking your class.”

Sophomore Research and Critical Writing Student, Spring 2007

“He’s the only English teacher I feel taught the class to my level, not his own.”

Freshman Research and Critical Writing Student, Spring 2007

“Mr. McNely has really taught me how to think more rhetorically and what things to consider when writing business documents. I also like how he developed relationships with all of his students.”

Junior Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication Student

“I think the openness of class discussions really helped to make the class fun and interesting.”

Senior Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication Student

“I would like to thank him for being so patient and helping me with my performance in this course. Thanks, I really have gained a lot of knowledge through this course! Thanks =)”

Freshman Research and Critical Writing Student, Spring 2007

“This is the first time I’ve enjoyed learning about English and Writing.”

Junior Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication Student

“I really like this course, and the way he teaches. I had not had a class like this before, but you always leave the class understanding everything. I’m definitely recommending my friends to take this course.”

Sophomore Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication Student

“I am pleased with the high level of student/teacher involvement, including class discussions, group projects, and lectures. The course held my interests because it was challenging and highly participative.”

Senior Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication Student

“He is very patient with International students.”

Junior Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication Student

UGLC, on Flickr.

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UGLC, on Flickr.

Curriculum Design and Consulting

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Strategic Redesign and Implementation of UTEP Workplace Writing Curriculum

In the fall of 2007, I redesigned and piloted comprehensive curricular changes to our program’s extant Workplace Writing curriculum based upon three core competencies:

The inclusion of disciplinary content and theories of rhetoric and professional communication that address Spinuzzi’s (2006) contention that knowledge workers need to become, first and foremost, strong rhetors
The cultivation of rhetorical dispositions and a proclivity for undergraduate research and dissemination
The alignment with a redesigned Technical Writing curriculum, and the planned development of a vertical curriculum for our forthcoming undergraduate Rhetoric and Writing Studies major

The programmatic adoption of the redesigned Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication curriculum began during the Fall of 2008, and includes the following ongoing activities:

Organizing and leading workshops for PhD faculty, Assistant Instructors, and adjunct faculty on curricular philosophy and pedagogical implementation
Providing mentoring to instructors teaching the course for the first time

Writing Curriculum Consultant, College of Business Administration

Earlier this year, I developed and wrote The 2008 College of Business Administration Writing Initiative, a report that detailed strategic opportunities for incorporating complex and targeted writing experiences within the core College of Business curriculum.

As a paid consultant in this role, I worked directly with Dr. Robert Nachtmann, Dean of the College of Business Administration, and Dr. Steve Johnson, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

The report served as the initial component of a larger grant project designed to incorporate more concrete and effectual writing experiences into the College of Business core curriculum.

My report offered concrete, strategic writing assignments and assessments designed to amplify and draw upon disciplinary knowledge in COBA content areas such as Finance, Accounting, Management, Marketing, and Business Law.

I continue to work on the implementation and assessment of this project, with the collaboration of Dr. Kate Mangelsdorf, Rhetoric and Writing Studies. During the Spring of 2009, the first three sections to synergistically incorporate the ethos of both projects will be offered to COBA students, and will include a linkage between Workplace Writing and Organizational Communication and BUSN 3301.

Nirvana, on Flickr.

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Nirvana, on Flickr.

Developing the Undergraduate Major in Rhetoric and Writing Studies

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A Recruiting White Paper for Academic Programs

Hydrants, on Flickr.

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Hydrants, on Flickr.

Selected Conference Presentations

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Imploding the (Inter) Text

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Please view full screen by clicking the easel in the lower right corner!

Theorizing Recursion: A Multi-disciplinary Approach

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Agency, Invention, and Sympatric Design Platforms

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Flickr, Photosynth, And Strange Loops

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Racial Projects/Spatial Projects: Exploring Agency and Subjectivity through GIS Mapping Technologies

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Carousel on Flickr.

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Carousel on Flickr.

Some (Helpful) Links

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To share research and ideas about things like knowledge work, knowledge and content management, rhetorical theory, visual rhetorics, social media, professional and technical communication, writing studies, and the like, please consider joining me on Twitter.

While I sometimes exchange comments on the vagaries of life with others on this site, I use Twitter primarily as a powerful, dynamic, and agile research tool. For an example of how Twitter can be used to swiftly and seamlessly aggregate and disseminate organizational knowledge work, please see the wonderful daily efforts of Peter West.

To share peer-reviewed academic research articles, books, and general ideas, please consider joining Mendeley.

I have a blog, too.

For more information about the doctoral program in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, please see the RWS@UTEP website, which contains a great many further links of interest to those studying in a variety of areas.

To see more photos like the ones found on this site, please visit my photostream on Flickr.

And please feel free to bookmark this site on delicious.

Socks, on Flickr.

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Socks, on Flickr.

About this Site

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This is the homepage of Brian J. McNely, doctoral candidate, researcher, and Assistant Director of the Rhetoric and Writing Studies Program at the University of Texas at El Paso. This site highlights my research, teaching, and academic consulting experience; for permissions or more information about any of the ideas or media found on this site, please do not hesitate to contact me at bjmcnely@miners.utep.edu.

This site was created primarily on an ASUS Eee PC 900 running Xandros Linux with a 16G solid state hard drive, using (almost)* entirely free web-based development and sharing tools. The fairly basic manipulation of a common tumblr theme, simple domain mapping, and tracking via Google Analytics allows this site to serve as an example of how social networking applications can be easily adapted for a variety of needs.

Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own, and can be accessed, dowloaded, and shared via Flickr.

*The primary domain registry was not free, but inexpensively obtained at godaddy.