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
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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
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology
- Rhetoric Society of America
- Society for the Social Studies of Science
- National Communication Association
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.