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Eight graduate students from the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies in the have had their research selected for presentation at several upcoming national and international conferences, including the prestigious National Communication Association (NCA) Convention, which will be held Nov. 17-20 in New Orleans. The NCA is the largest national organization dedicated to communication.

“The NCA Convention is one of the most important competitive conference venues where students and faculty in the related fields of communication and rhetorical studies can showcase their work,” says Bradford Vivian, associate professor of communication and rhetorical studies and coordinator of the department’s graduate program. “It’s unusually impressive not only to have such a large portion of our graduate student body accepted, but also to have papers chosen from so many of our first-year M.A. candidates, who are competing for inclusion against doctoral students from other programs.”

The graduate students who will present their research are:

• Olivia Conti, who will present “The Intertextual Production of Irony in the Mash-Up” at the NCA Convention’s Language and Social Interaction Division and “Evading Identity Trouble: Affect and Political Correctness Discourse” at the NCA Convention’s Critical and Cultural Studies Division;
• Alexa Eisner, who will present “Fearless Nation: A Discursive Analysis of Virtual Play Therapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” at the NCA Convention’s Language and Social Interaction Division;
• Katie Lind, who will present “Autobiography as Activism: A Rhetorical Criticism of Blue Vinyl” at the NCA Convention’s Feminist and Women Studies Division and “Four Little Girls and the Subjunctive Voice in Film” at the NCA Convention’s Theme Group;
• Christopher Perrello, who will present “Discursive Identity Construction of Drag Queens on Rupaul’s Drag Race” at the Language and Social Interaction Conference at Columbia University’s Teachers College in October;
• Heather Roy, who will present “Grievable Gays: The Mass Media’s Coverage of LGBT Teen Suicides Adds to the Body of Tolerance Discourse” at the NCA Convention’s GLBTQ Communication Studies Division and “Fragmentation and Circulation of Mass Mediated Messages and the Rhetorical Construction of Social Identities” at the NCA Convention’s Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division;
• Mark Schaukowitch, who will present “Rhetorical Situation or Event?” at the NCA Convention’s Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division;
• Sally Spalding, who will present “Love Yurts: The Intimacy of Text Messaging” at the NCA Convention’s Language and Social Interaction Division; and
• Danny Stofleth, who will present “The Manifestations of Memory in Spain: Memory Politics and the Development of a Hegemonic Narrative” at the ninth biennial Conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July and “Critical Analysis of the Medal of Honor Interviews: Using Ideologies to Construct Reality” at the NCA Convention’s Language and Social Interaction Division.