Issue 46, January 2021 – Rhetoric and Communications Journal
COVID-19: Communication and Rhetoric: Research Methods and Study Perspectives
Contributors
Ivanka Mavrodieva
Ivanka Mavrodieva is the Chair of the Executive Board of the Institute of Rhetoric and Communications. She is Full Professor, PhD and Dr. Hab. She is a lecturer in rhetoric, business communication, public relations and academic writing at Sofia University. She is the author of 12 books presenting scientific information in new and traditional spheres through the eyes of the researcher. Mavrodieva is the author of 120 articles, 25 of which are published in English, Russian, and French in renowned scientific journals; as well as in international scientific conferences proceedings held in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine, etc. She is author of two collections and one textbook with oratorical speeches and complier of two collections and one chrestomathy. She has been a member of the Executive Board of the Rhetoric Society of Europe (RSE), http://eusorhet.eu/, since 2013, for two consecutive terms. Mavrodieva regards rhetoric as an ancient yet vital science, communication as practices in business, Web 4.0, the Internet of things. E-mail: mavrodieva@phls.uni-sofia.bg, i.mavrodieva@gmail.com
Andrea Valente
Andrea C. Valente, PhD, is Course Director at York University, Canada, with a focus on teaching rhetoric and composition, Canadian culture, and social studies to ESL undergraduates. She is an Applied Linguist and her main research is on rhetoric studies and on foreign language learning and teaching in higher education. Her doctoral project brought together the humanities and neurosciences with the title, “The Vernacularization of the Neurosciences: A Case Study of Neuro-Autobiographies in the Age of Complexity”. Her research interests are in the fields of Academic Writing, Discourse Studies, Cross-Cultural Communication, Applied Linguistics. Some recent publications: Resilience and Well-Being Among International Students During Acculturation Process: Blogging Without Borders (2018), Online Advertisements of Personal Brain Wearables in the Everyday: Click Here, Learn More! (2017), Shaking, Spinning and Entangling under Complexity Theories: A Case Study in Digital Autobiographies (2017). E-mail: valentac@yorku.ca
Paola Giorgis
Paola Giorgis holds a BA and MA in English and North-American Literature and Studies and a PhD in Anthropology of Education and Intercultural Education. She has also had training in Critical Socio-linguistics and in the rhetorical strategies of persuasion and manipulation in contemporary public debates. Her main interest regards a critical, intercultural and interdisciplinary approach to (foreign) languages able to develop an awareness on how words are used and mobilized in education and public discourse, and how they can both serve processes of manipulation and domination, as well as of empowerment and emancipation. She has published two monographs, several articles, chapters in collective works and has participated to many international conferences. She is co-founder and member of wom.an.ed (women’s studies in anthropology and education), and is affiliated to several international associations of Linguistics and Intercultural Studies. Her most recent publication (2018) is Meeting Foreignness. Foreign Language and Foreign Language Education as Critical and Intercultural Experiences. Boulder CO, New York NY: Lexington, Rowman & Littlefield. She teaches English, Literature and Visual Arts. Email: paola.giorgis@womaned.org
COVID-19 through the Prism of Rhetorical and Discourse Research
Jagadish Paudel, Owen M. Williamson – Deadly Rhetoric Gone Viral: Genomic Language and COVID-19
Jagadish Paudel is currently pursuing his Ph. D. in Rhetoric and Composition Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, in the US. Prior to this, he taught various English Courses, including Readings in English, Literature in the Classroom, Teacher Professional Development at Tribhuvan University for more than a decade. He has completed his M. A. and M.ED. in English from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Having worked in the field of English Language Teaching at the college level for over a decade, he has presented his research at national and international conferences. He has also published a couple of academic articles in the field of teaching English. His other areas of interest include Social Justice Pedagogy, Hindu Rhetoric, Public Rhetoric, and Digital Cultural Rhetoric. E-mails: paudeljaggu@gmail.com & jpaudel@miners.utep.edu
Owen Williamson is a recently-retired Lecturer in Developmental English at the University of Texas at El Paso [UTEP]. He completed his B. A. in English at the University of St. Thomas, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and his M. A. in Professional Writing and Rhetoric at UTEP. His other areas of interest include Orthodox Marxist Rhetoric, Logical Fallacies in Public Discourse, Byzantine History and Rhetoric, History of India, technology, and developmental English pedagogy. E-mail: omwilliamson@utep.edu
Peter Mantello, Douglas Ponton – Virality, Contagion and Public Discourse. The Role of Memes as Prophylaxis and Catharsis in an Age of Crisis
Peter Mantello is Professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan. His research focuses on the nexus between media, ethics, and technology. He is currently the principal investigator on two exploratory projects dealing with artificial intelligence. The first project examines ethical, political and cultural dimensions of emotional artificial intelligence in Smart City Design. The second deals with the rise of algorithmically driven predictive policing technologies and the ethical dilemmas resulting in temporal and sectoral shifts in criminal justice. E-mail: mantello@apu.ac.jp
Douglas Mark Ponton is Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Catania. His research interests include political discourse analysis, ecolinguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, pragmatics and critical discourse studies. His recent publications include “For Arguments Sake: Speaker Evaluation in Modern Political Discourse” and “Understanding Political Persuasion: Linguistic and Rhetorical Aspects”. As well as politics, his research deals with a variety of social topics including tourism, the discourse of mediation, ecology, local dialect and folk traditions, including proverbs and the Blues. E-mail: dmponton@gmail.com
Veena Namboodri – COVID-19, Climate Change and ‘The Denial Playbook’: on the Rhetoricality of Science Denial in the COVID-climate Analogy
Veena Namboodri is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture at the Department of Humanities, Michigan Technological University, USA. Her research interests are in the fields of rhetorical criticism, critical discourse studies, postcolonial-decolonial theories, and environmental (Anthropocene) humanities. Her doctoral dissertation looks at the discursive convergence of nature and nationalism in the context of climate change and far right nationalisms from a global southern perspective. Her pedagogical experience spans the areas of first year composition, public speaking, and technical communication. Email: vnambood@mtu.edu
COVID-19 through the Prism of Communication Research
Veronika Katermina, Talina Ilmaz-Ledeneva – COVID-19: Gender Specifics of Expression of Emotions in the Discourse of Social Networks
Veronika Katermina is a Full Professor at the Department of English Philology, Faculty of Romance-German Philology, Kuban State University in Krasnodar (Russia). She studied English Literature, English and American Studies at Kuban State University (Russia) and completed her doctoral studies at Kuban State University in Krasnodar (2005) in English and Russian linguistics. The main areas of her research and teaching interests include gender linguistics, political linguistics, sociolinguistics, neology, theory of translation. She has published more than 200 papers in specialized scientific proceedings and journals. Veronika Katermina is the author of the monographs “Nominations of a person: national and cultural aspect (based on the Russian and English languages)” (2016), “Word-formation potential of neologisms in the English mass media discourse” (2019), “Bilingualism and culture: the psycholinguistic aspect” (2020), “Proper names in the literary text (based on the Russian and English languages)” (2020). Е-mail: veronika.katermina@yandex.ruр, https://kubsu.ru/public-portfolio
Talina Ilmaz-Ledeneva is a 3rd-year graduate student at the Department of English Philology, Faculty of Romance-German Philology, Kuban State University in Krasnodar (Russia). She studied Journalism and completed her master degree at Kuban State University in Krasnodar (2018) in Russian as a foreign language. She has been teaching the Russian language to foreign students for 4 years in Krasnodar State Institute of Culture. The main areas of her research include gender linguistics, virtual communication and communication in social media. She has published 10 papers in specialized scientific proceedings and journals. E-mail: tal-ilmaz@yandex.ru
Bilyana Todorova – War Metaphors in Bulgarian Official Discourse during the COVID-19 Crisis
Bilyana Todorova, PhD is an Associate Professor at South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Blagoevgrad, Faculty of Philology, Department of Bulgarian language. Her research interests are on Linguistic Stylistics and Rhetoric, Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Computer-mediated Discourse, etc. Рublications: Use of Academic Discourse Features in BG-MAMMA Forum Discussions, The Digital Scholar: Academic Communication in Multimedia Environment (2020); The Phrase “Krivorazbrana Tolerantnost” in Bulgarian Maternity Forum Communication (2020); Bulgarian-English Code-switching in Internet Forum Communication: The BG-mamma Case, De Gryuter Open Linguistics 2019). E-mail: b_stoianova@hotmail.com; bilyanatodorova@swu.bg
COVID-19 and Changes in the Education
Spas Rangelov – The Role of Communication in the Online Education in Bulgarian Studies in Korea
Spas Rangelov is an Associate Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, South Korea. He holds an MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Sofia, and an MA and a PhD from SOAS, University of London. His PhD dissertation is on Korean linguistics. He has previously taught subjects related to Japanese Studies and Korean Studies at the University of Sofia, the University of Plovdiv, Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. His interests include theoretical linguistics, especially functionalism and typology, Bulgarian language, Slavic and Balkan languages, East Asian languages and cultures. E-mail: rangelovsa@yahoo.com
Nora Golesehvska – The COVID-19 crisis and the critique on online education: Francesco Monico’s “Agamben’s J’accuse against distance learning”
Nora Goleshevska, PhD. Her scientific interests and expertise are in the fields of visual rhetoric, argumentation and semiotics. She is the chair of the Institute for Creative Civil Strategies. Research program: “Periodization in the History of Art and its Conundrums. How to tackle them in East-Central Europe” at New Europe College-Institute for Advanced Study-Bucharest. E-mail: artes.liberales@gmail.com
Presentation of IOW project
In Other Words. A critical, creative, collaborative project
Paola Giorgis. Independent Scholar and Teacher of English, Literature and Visual Arts, Italy. E-mail: paola.giorgis@womaned.org
Ivanka Mavrodieva. Institute of Rhetoric and Communications, Bulgaria. E-mail: mavrodieva@phls.uni-sofia.bg
Victoria Odeniyi. University of the Arts, London; University of London, UK. E-mail: v.odeniyi@arts.ac.uk
Olena Semenets. Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, Ukraine. E-mail: o.semenets@knute.edu.ua
Bilyana Todorova. South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. E-mail: bilyanatodorova@swu.bg
Andrea Valente. York University, Canada. E-mail: valentac@yorku.ca
Ioanna Vovou. Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Athens, Greece). Email: vovou@panteion.gr
Брой 46 на сп. „Реторика и комуникации“, януари 2021 г. се издава с финансовата помощ на Фонд научни изследвания, договор № КП-06-НП2/41 от 07 декември 2020 г.
Issue 46 of the Rhetoric and Communications Journal (January 2021) is published with the financial support of the Scientific Research Fund, Contract No. KP-06-NP2/41 of December 07, 2020.