Rhetoric, Fall 2013

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Alexander Bolden ’15, at left, meets with professor Charles Nero, a member of the Rhetoric faculty. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

We welcome Jon Cavallero to the department this fall. Professor Cavallero is a film scholar with a broad range of interests including film and television history, race and Italian-American representations.

Professor Cavallero received his doctorate from Indiana University and taught most recently at the University of Arkansas. This fall, he will offer a film theory course and a senior seminar about Bollywood, the Indian film industry. Despite the fact he is a Yankees fan, we are pleased to have him in the department.

Professor Charles Nero will be teaching RHET 226 Minority Images in Film. Though previously taught at Bates, it is a course new to him and to the Rhetoric department. Last year Professor Kelley-Romano’s RHET 265 Rhetoric of Women’s Rights students presented their final “investigative video” projects at the Mount David Summit and Professor Nero introduced the “Video Essay” as a final project in his new RHET 391E Interracial Buddy Film course.

As a department we are excited by the incorporation of the critical/creative process into the curriculum. We have been impressed with the creativity, initiative and imagination of students doing this work.

This summer has been a busy one for our beloved Pettigrew. Following renovations, we will reclaim the third floor! As part of improvements undertaken by the college, we will have a seminar room-lounge. We are excited about the intellectual energy this space will provide and hope all who are interested in rhetoric (and really, who isn’t?) will come to visit and perhaps stay to engage with a vibrant discipline and department.

We are equally pleased at the new and improved media production abilities that will be available to students as a result of the Pettigrew project. As moving images and other media become increasingly important in our curriculum and the world, providing students with the facilities to create and produce — as well as critique — is a central goal of the department. Come fall, Pettigrew will be the place to be!

Learn more about the Rhetoric department at Bates.