Jodie Nicotra
Research/Focus Areas
  • Rhetoric and Composition, with emphasis on the rhetoric of science and technology
  • Material rhetorics
  • New media
  • Rhetorical theory
  • Critical theory
My Courses
  • English 90, Developmental Writing
  • English 101, Introduction to College Writing
  • English 102, College Writing and Rhetoric
  • English 207, Persuasive Writing
  • English 309, Advanced Prose
  • English 404, Senior Honors Seminar: Humans and Technology in the Age of the Cyborg
  • English 504, History of Rhetoric
  • English 504: Language, Persuasion, and the Body
  • English 504/Architecture 504: Persuasion of Place
  • English 504, Studies in Rhetoric: New Media
  • English 506, Introduction to Composition
  • Core Discovery 148/178, The Power of Play

Jodie Nicotra

College of Letters, Arts & Social Sciences
Department of English
Assistant Professor, Assistant Director of Writing

Home Town
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

With UI Since
2005
Office: Brink Hall
Phone: (208) 885-5945
Email: jnicotra@uidaho.edu
Mailing Address:
English Department - University of Idaho
P.O. Box 441102
Moscow, Idaho 83844-1102

  • M.A., Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, English: Rhetoric and Composition, 2005
  • B.A., B.S., The University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, English Literature/Biology, 1995

A native of Pittsburgh, Jodie received a Ph.D. in the field of rhetoric and composition in 2005. She has published articles on various aspects of rhetoric and writing, and is currently working on two books: a rhetorical genealogy of the concept of habit, and a new book (with Rochelle Smith from the UI Library) about the current renaissance of the “do-it-yourself” ethos. Jodie typically teaches undergraduate writing courses and graduate courses in composition theory and various aspects of rhetoric; she has also taught in the Honors and Core Discovery Programs.



RECENT PUBLICATIONS & SCHOLARSHIP

  • “The Anaesthetic Revelation of Kenneth Burke.” Invited chapter for Burke in the Archives. Discusses how Kenneth Burke’s career-long interest in mysticism changed and developed over time.
  • “Making a Habit of Success: Disciplinary Rhetorics and the New Economy.” Currently under review at Postmodern Culture. Looks at how habit-based self-help books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People “discipline” readers into being more flexible and efficient producers.
  • “Rushing the Cure: Temporal Rhetorics in Global Warming Discourse.” Accepted at JAC: Rhetoric, Writing, Culture, Politics. Looks at the critical role of time (what the article calls “chronotopes”) in newspaper reporting on global climate change. Co-written with Judith Totman Parrish.
  • “Dancing Attitudes in Wartime: Kenneth Burke and General Semantics.” Accepted at Rhetoric Society Quarterly, June 2009. Using the work of Kenneth Burke and Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics, traces out the effects of differing attitudes toward language in World War II America.
  • "'Folksonomy' and the Restructuring of Writing Space." College Composition and Communication 61:1 (2009): 233-250. Talks about the need to adopt and teach different metaphors for writing, using “folksonomy” or multi-user tagging as an example.
  • "The Seduction of Samuel Butler: Rhetorical Agency and the Art of Response." Rhetoric Review 27:1 (2008), 38-53. Uses the ideas of fascination and seduction (as seen in Samuel Butler’s reading of Darwin’s Origin of Species) as the basis for a new form of reading.
  • "William James in the Borderlands: Psychedelic Science and the 'Accidental Fences' of Self." Configurations 16:2 (Winter 2010). Talks about William James’s self-experiments with nitrous oxide as a way to think about responding to habit.


OUTREACH

  • Jodie gives workshops and presentations on writing in the workplace, incorporating writing in undergraduate courses, teaching writing to graduate students, and science in the media.