Interview | Roxanne Mountford

Happy June, Zeugmates! While the podcast proper is on hiatus for the summer, we're bringing you a special interview series to bridge the gap.

In May, a number of graduate students from the Digital Writing & Research Lab attended the 2014 Rhetoric Society of America conference in San Antonio, TX. During the conference, lab assistant director and former Zeugma member Eric Detweiler sat down with five scholars who are working at the intersections of rhetoric and technology: from the University of Kentucky, Roxanne Mountford and Jeff Rice; from Syracuse University, Collin Brooke; from Texas Tech University, Joyce Locke Carter; and from Clemson University, Victor Vitanza. All these interviews will be released individually over the course of the summer.

Up first is Eric's conversation with Roxanne Mountford, associate professor and founding director of the University of Kentucky's newly christened Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies (WRD). You can stream the interview below; you can both stream and download it via this link.

Dr. Mountford has served on the Rhetoric Society of America's board of directors and the editorial board for the journal Rhetoric Society Quarterly. She's the author of The Gendered Pulpit: Preaching in American Protestant Spaces and co-author of Women's Ways of Making it in Rhetoric and Composition. Much of her current work focuses on the history of speaking and writing instruction in American colleges and universities throughout the twentieth century. She is, along with Dr. William Keith (who makes a cameo in the interview), one of the primary authors of the Mt. Oread Manifesto, which was published in issue 44.1 of Rhetoric Society Quarterly. That manifesto calls for the reuniting of speaking and writing instruction under the banner of rhetoric--a reunion that Mountford and Keith position as an important step forward for civic education. Eric talked with Dr. Mountford about the manifesto, the origins of WRD, and her hopes for the future of rhetorical education.

Transition music: Chris Saner's "Mor's Back" via Jamendo