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Gregory D. Wilson

Assistant Professor

Short Biography

I am an assistant professor of rhetoric and professional communication. I became interested in the rhetoric of science through the idea of incommensurability--the idea that ties us rhetoricians in knots and yet isn't at all a deal-breaker for other fields that study science (sociology, anthropology, history, policy studies, etc.). Having done a lot of applied work in industry and government outside of the academy, the idea that technical professionals from different disciplines "just couldn't talk to each other" was a non-starter. I've spent a lot of my applied career trying to frame incommensurability as a set of difficulties not a set of impossibilities and to help engineers and scientists collaborate and communicate.

From 2000 to 2008 I had the opportunity to work as a researcher alongside engineers and scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in part inventing what it means for a rhetorician to be "doing science." I found that the conceptual space of daunting technical problems--problem areas that necessitate truly interdisciplinary teams coming together to build new physical tools and new interpretive schema--to be a space where rhetoricians could make rich and useful contributions. Interpreting and defining new problems and building appropriate tools and schema involves high-order invention and arrangement, and rhetoricians have thousands of years of experience in those areas.

In terms of scholarship, I am interested in the intersection of science, technology, culture, and rhetoric. I want to use ethnographic methods to study places and groups that surround technical problems/issues. I want to pull in concepts from a broad swath of science studies disciplines to inform and reflect rhetorical theory. Ultimately, I want to use rhetoric to better understand how to solve important technical problems and to solve important technical problems.

Office/Office Hours

office: 353 Ross
office hours: M & W 11 - 12, 2 - 3
office phone: (515) 294-6690
email: gdwilson@iastate.edu
personal website
:

Interests

The Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Culture
Ethnography
Rhetorical Theory and Criticism
Technical Communication
Science Studies

Selected Publications

Wilson, Alyson, Laura McNamara, and Greg Wilson. “Information Integration for Complex Systems.” Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 92 (2007), 121-130.

Wilson, Greg and Carl Herndl. “Boundary Objects as Rhetorical Exigence: Knowledge Mapping and Interdisciplinary Cooperation at Los Alamos National Laboratory.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 2007 21: 129-154.

Wilson, Greg and Carl Herndl. “Reflections on Field Research and Professional Practice.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 2007 21: 216-226.

Wilson, Alyson, Gregory Wilson, and David H. Olwell, eds. Statistical Methods in Counterterrorism. Springer, 2006.

Wilson, Greg, and Julie Dyke Ford. “The Big Chill: A Conversation with Seven Professionals Ten Years After They Graduated with Master’s Degrees in Technical Communication.” Technical Communication. 50(2), May 2003. 145-159.

Wilson, Greg. "Technical Communication and Late Capitalism: Considering a Postmodern Technical Communication Pedagogy." Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15:(1), 2001, 72-99.

Wilson, Greg, Carl G. Herndl, and Julie Simon. "Playing in Traffic: Cultural Studies and Composition Pedagogy." Composition Studies, 27:(1), 1999, 93-107.

Affiliations

Degrees

Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Professional Communication
New Mexico State University, Department of English, Las Cruces, NM, July 2001.
Dissertation—Articulation Theory and Disciplinary Change: Unpacking the Bayesian-Frequentist Paradigm Conflict in Statistical Science. Director: Carl G. Herndl
M.A. in Professional Writing
Carnegie Mellon University, Department of English, Pittsburgh, PA, December 1991.
B.A. in Psychology
Emory University, Atlanta, GA, May 1989.

ISU English Department

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