Tag: artificial-intelligence

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“A Copious Void” Recieves Golden Anniversary Monograph Award from the National Communication Association

Convention logo for the 2025 National Communication Association Convention, which includes an image of clouds and bubbles assembled into the shape of a hot air balloon. The name of the convention theme is also included: "Communicate to Elevate."

I’m honored to have received the National Communication Association’s Golden Anniversary Monograph Award for my essay, “A Copious Void: Rhetoric as Artificial Intelligence 1.0”!

I’m floored in particular that folks have found the essay to be useful as ai development has intensified in dire, dangerous, and ever more death-centred ways since 2024. I’m so grateful to S. Scott Graham and Zoltan Majdik for their support for this piece and their willingness to include it in their special issue. I am also indebted to Joshua Trey Barnett’s editorial guidance. Truly, this essay would not have turned out as it did had it not been for them and the anonymous reviewers, all of whom made the product immeasurably better.

To that end, please check out the entire “Rhetoric of/with AI” special issue. It is excellent and deserves your attention if you are engaged with this particular topic. There is an amazing introduction from S. Scott Graham & Zoltan Majdik, incredible work on reproductive surveillance from Kem-Laurin L. & Randy Allen Harris, incisive, care-driven criticism on ai as a form of time-traveling memory from Emma Bedor Hiland, genre-based methods from Ryan Omizo & Bill Hart-Davidson, timely reflections on #WallStreetBets from Misti Yang & Zoltan Majdik, and a spicy conclusion from Casey Boyle. Please check it out!

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New Open-Access Publication: “A Copious Void: Rhetoric as Artificial Intelligence Version 1.0”

I’m happy to announce the publication of “A Copious Void: Rhetoric as Artificial Intelligence Version 1.0” in Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Here’s the abstract:

Rhetoric is a trace retained in and by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. This concept illuminates how rhetoric and AI have faced issues related to information abundance, entrenched social inequalities, discriminatory biases, and the reproduction of repressive ideologies. Drawing on their shared root terminology (stochastic/artifice), common logic (zero-agency), and similar forms of organization (trope+algorithm), this essay urges readers to consider the etymological, ontological, and formal dimensions of rhetoric as inherent features of contemporary AI.

The essay is part of a special issue on the subject of rhetoric and artificial intelligence. I encourage you to check out the entire thing.

It features amazing work from Misti Yang (w/ Zoltan Majdik) about Wallstreetbets and the pathologic of rhetoric/AI, as well as by Bill Hart-Davidson (w/ Ryan Omizo), whose essay is about genre and fake writing detection. I got to hear about Emma Bedor Hiland’s essay on AI, writing, and time travel at NCA, where I was likewise floored by Kem-Laurin Lubin’s essay (w/ Randy Allen Harris) on reproductive tracking and ethopoeia. Casey Boyle’s response — where he embodies the writing position of a chatbot — is also up; it is reluctantly written, but also hilarious, insightful, and not to be missed. I’m so grateful to be alongside these folks in this issue.

You can find the full essay, open access, here.