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Carl G. Herndl
Professor
I have always been concerned with the ways rhetorical performances produce and reproduce social relations and the structures that stabilize them. Partly this interest comes from the tradition of ideological critique, and partly from the Marxist and feminist desire to foster change and revision towards more rather than less democratic forms of life. The political and ideological analysis provided by Cultural Studies helps me think about power and subjectivity, and the textual analysis of Rhetoric helps me see how specific languages and texts enact these cultural activities. At the moment, these interests have lead me to write about the theory of rhetorical agency and the possibility of meaningful social change through rhetorical performance. Since I find it more rewarding to write theory about a specific situation or from within a concrete case, I am currently working with a group of agricultural ecologists interested in changing farming practices in the Midwest. Agricultural ecology or sustainable agriculture is a scientific, political, social, and ethical movement striving toward change. And this seems to me a useful context for thinking about our disciplinary theories of rhetorical agency.
I am currently a member of three different interdisciplianry research teams in agroecosystems research and sustainability. As part of this work, I have coauthored an article on Nitrogen dynamics in soil and the effects on water quality, and I am currently finishing another paper on the sustainability of biofuel production configurations and its policy implications. These collaborations led me to co-author a white paper on sustainable biofuels for a workshop at the National Council on Science Policy and the Environment (NCSE) in 2005. And I am currently working with an interdisciplilanry group to organize a half day workshop on biofuels and climate change at the 2008 NCSE conference in Washington. I am also Co-PI on a million dollar research proposal to study what technological, economic, environmental and policy changes persuade farmers to adopt sustainable land management practices and how these individual decisions aggregate at landscape scales to produce more rather than less sustainable agricultural patterns. This particular project involves two agronomists, a geo-spatial geographer, an agricultural economist and a rhetorician--me. Our goal is to understand what motivates, in Burke's terms, social change across a landscape and how to foster sustainable agriculture. Fun work if the USDA funds it. If USDA funds this three year project, it will provide funding for a couple doctoral students as research assistants for three years.
Office/Office Hours
- office: 357 Ross
- office hours: Thursday 2:30-4:30
- office phone: (515) 294-7590
- email: cgh@iastate.edu
Interests
- Rhetorical Theory
- Cultural Studies
- Agricultural Ecology and Sustainable Agriculture
- Rhetorical Study of Science
- Theories of Rhetorical and Cultural Agency
Awards
- Winner of the 2001 National Council of Teachers of English award for “Best Article in the Philosophy and Theory of Technical and Scientific Communication.” For “Research as Social Practice: A Case Study of Research on Technical and Professional Communication.” With Cindy Nahrwold. Written Communication. 17.2 (April 2000): 258-96.
- Winner of the 1997 National Council of Teachers of English award for the best collection in scientific and technical communication for Green Culture: Environmental Rhetoric in Contemporary America. Edited with Stuart C. Brown. University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
- Green Culture: Environmental Rhetoric in Contemporary America. Edited with Stuart C. Brown. University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
- Guest Editor of the Journal of Business and Technical Communication special issue on “Critical Practice in Professional Communication.” 18.1, (January), 2004.
- “Boundary Objects as Rhetorical Exigence: Knowledge Mapping and Interdisciplinary Cooperation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory” With Greg Wilson (Los Alamos National Laboratory). The Journal of Business and Technical Communication. April 2007.
- “Reflections on field Research and Professional Practice.” With Greg Wilson (Los Alamos National Laboratory). The Journal of Business and Technical Communication. April 2007.
- “Shifting Agency: Agency, Kairos, and the Possibility of Social Action” with Adela Licona.Cultural Perspectives on the Regulation of Discourse and Organizations. Eds. Charlotte Thralls and Mark Zachry. Baywood. 2007.
- “Impacts of Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems on Nitrogen Dynamics and Soil Erosion in Western Iowa Watersheds.” With M. Burkart, D. James (National Soil Tilth Laboratory, Ames, Iowa), M. Liebman (Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa). Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 110, GXXXXX, doi:10.1029/2004JG000008, 2005
- “Speaking Matters: Liberation Theology, Rhetorical Performance, and Social Action.” with Dan A. Bauer. College Composition and Communication. 54.4. (June 2003): 558-85.
- “Research as Social Practice: A Case Study of Research on Technical and Professional Communication.” With Cindy Nahrwold. Written Communication. 17.2 (April 2000): 258-96.
- "Beyond the Realm of Reason: The Extremist Environmental Rhetoric of the John Birch Society." with Robert L. Brown. Green Culture: Rhetorical Analyses of Environmental Discourse. University of Wisconsin Press, 1996, 213-35.
- "Teaching Discourse and Reproducing Culture." College Composition and Communication. 44.3 (1993): 349-63.
- "Writing Ethnography: Representation, Rhetoric, and Institutional Practices." College English. 53.3 (1991): 320-32.
- Keynote Speaker. The Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. London, Ontario, May 2005.
- Invited speaker for the fourth Rhetoric Culture Conference, “Politics and Economics,” Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany July 16-20, 2005. Expenses paid by conference grant from Volkswagon Corp.
- Ph.D. University of Minnesota, 1986
- B.A. University of North Carolina, 1977
