In the Fall 2018 semester, Drs. Harley Ferris & Kit Medjesky co-taught a Master’s level course in the rhetoric of film. The execution of this course came after years of discussion and months of planning when these two trained rhetoricians discovered two things about each other: 1) They both loved to study the rhetoric of film, and 2) Their differing backgrounds in English and Communication put them at very different theoretical starting points.
This roundtable includes Drs. Ferris & Medjesky as well as three students who participated in the course. Key talking points will include how the professors came to study film from a rhetorical perspective, the theoretical grounding for their English (Giroux’s public pedagogy) and Communication (Burke’s equipment for living) rhetorical perspectives, the intersections of those perspectives, the final outcome of the course, and future directions for the course, co-teaching, and showcasing the students’ work.
Our panel of professors and students is excited to discuss with each other and the audience the successes and failures of this co-teaching approach, the potential for a more inclusive view of rhetoric, strategies for teaching film a the graduate level, students’ needs in graduate coursework, and successes these graduate students found in the course (including submitting their work to the Mid-Atlantic Conference this year).
About the presentersKit Medjesky
Kit Medjesky is a critical rhetorician and Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Findlay. His work has focused on comedy and media, and he is currently serving in the Professional Wrestling Studies Association.
He is always up for lunch or dinner. Always. Breakfast is personal.
Personal Twitter: @medjesky PWSA Twitter: @ThePWSA
Andrew T. Flinn
Andrew Flinn is a Master of Writing and Rhetoric student at the University of Findlay in Findlay Ohio. In addition to his academic career, Flinn has spent almost twenty years working in media as a journalist, on-air personality and production manager in local, regional and national radio.
Lindsay Elaine Mapes
Currently, I am a graduate student in my final year of The University of Findlay’s Writing and Rhetoric Program. My undergraduate degree is in Communication with a concentration in Journalism and a minor in English from Adelphi University. Special interests include but are not limited to: folklore and fairy tales, medieval literature, film and cultural studies, digital storytelling, and creative nonfiction.