FAQs

I’m Kevin Rutherford (he/him). I’d prefer you call me Kevin. If you need to address me by a title, you can call me Dr. Rutherford, Professor Rutherford, Professor, Professor Kevin, or Dr. Kevin. (Though, honestly, I’d prefer just Kevin.)

That said, please don’t call me “Mr. Rutherford.” (I realize it might sound silly, but I worked for years to get my PhD, so I get sad when it gets unintentionally demoted.)

I have been teaching at UCSB since Summer 2019. I’ve taught a variety of classes here, including multimedia writing, writing for engineers, first-year writing, and business writing. This is my first quarter teaching WRIT 105R, although part of my research is in contemporary rhetorical theory (especially nonhuman and nonrepresentational rhetoric). I’ve taught a variety of courses on rhetoric at other institutions, including feminist rhetoric, history of rhetoric, and contemporary rhetorical theory, and my graduate degrees are in English with a specialization in Composition and Rhetoric (at both the MA and PhD level). In other words, I’m very excited about this class.

I currently live in Goleta with my spouse and my cat, Charlie. I play a lot of video games, and enjoy hiking and cooking. Despite liking to cook, I don’t really enjoy eating. I find it kind of a chore.

Before starting at UCSB, I worked at a school in the State University of New York system. Before that, I got my PhD and MA from Miami University (in Ohio). Before starting grad school, I received a BA in English and a BA in History from the University of Southern Indiana. And before all of that, I was born in east Tennessee. I’ve lived in a lot of different places.

I’m happy to answer any questions you have about me – academic or otherwise – so don’t hesitate to ask!

This class is about rhetoric.

Part of what you’ll find out during the course is that, while that seems straightforward enough, “rhetoric” is a complicated term, and there’s no singular definition to let us know what exactly is meant when someone says “this course is about rhetoric.”

When someone says “I study biology,” for instance, you generally know that they mean they examine the processes of living things. You have to dig a little further into biology to start to ask existential questions about biology as a field. For instance, does biology cover viruses? Viruses aren’t alive in the same ways other things are alive: they can’t keep themselves stable like cellular creatures can; they can’t make their own energy; they don’t mature. How about prions, the infectious strands of proteins responsible for diseases like bovine encephalitis? Are they alive? If not, do they get studied by chemists or biologists? What about the transition between life and death (or vice versa, from non-living matter to self-organizing living matter): at what point does it stop being biology and start being chemistry? What real differences are there between a dead body and a living one, and when does one start being the other, and how many of those divisions are arbitrary?

The difference between biology and rhetoric is that the study of rhetoric starts with those questions. What counts as rhetoric? Who defines it? When does something stop being rhetoric and start being something else, or does it just become a different kind of rhetoric? That’s at least one part of what this class is about.

The other part is that, even when we agree that something is rhetoric, we get to examine how it operates, how effective it is, why it’s effective (or not), and what consequences it might have. So, we can say “that’s persuasive” and do rhetorical work to find out why, but we can also say “that’s persuasive, but is it also dangerous?” and do rhetorical work there too. Or we might say “that’s not persuasive, but it is ethically sound” and figure out how to make it more persuasive.

Rhetoric is a lot of things, and so this class is about a lot of things, and I think that’s really exciting. I hope you do too.

I hold scheduled office hours via Zoom from noon-2pm on Thursdays. You can also always get in touch through email to schedule another time to meet. (My Zoom ID is: 676 383 1237.)

I cannot tell you how much I value conversations about writing. I find them extremely productive and engaging.

Apart from office hours (which are free to drop into whenever, no appointment required), I will also be scheduling individual chats with all of you during the quarter, and opening up additional times you can choose to meet during weeks 7 and 10.

You are welcome to email me (kjr@ucsb.edu) at any point throughout the quarter, regardless of the time or day. Typically, I will get back to you within 24 hours (if not sooner). If you don’t hear back from me within 24 hours, please follow up. (I mean this!) This is my standard policy, and I think it applies even more so with online classes.