Specialization:
Amy Propen teaches courses in rhetoric and professional writing, including Writing About Sustainability, Multimedia Writing, and Technical Writing. Her research interests focus on visual-material and environmental rhetorics, posthumanism, animal studies, and rhetoric as advocacy. Her recent book, Visualizing Posthuman Conservation in the Age of the Anthropocene, was published with The Ohio State University Press in 2018. Her new book, At Home in the Anthropocene, is a follow-up to Visualizing Posthuman Conservation and was published in 2022 with The Ohio State UP.
Bio:
Amy Propen teaches courses in rhetoric and professional writing, including Writing About Sustainability, Multimedia Writing, and Technical Writing. She earned her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Scientific & Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota, and also holds a master’s degree in Technical and Professional Writing from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and a bachelor's degree in Geography from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her research interests include visual and material rhetorics, environmental and sustainability rhetorics, digital and posthuman rhetorics, rhetoric and technical communication as advocacy work, classical and contemporary rhetorical theory, animal studies, environmental studies, human geography, critical cartographies, and critical GIS.
Publications:
Selected Publications
Books and Edited Collections
Propen, Amy D. Visual Rhetoric: In Retrospective Prospect. Under advance contract with the Parlor Press Visual Rhetoric Series.
Propen, Amy D. An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Wildlife Corridors: Conservation, Compassion, and Connectivity. Forthcoming with Anthem Press, Strategies for Sustainable Development Series.
Propen, Amy D. At Home in the Anthropocene. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2022.
Propen, Amy D. Visualizing Posthuman Conservation in the Age of the Anthropocene. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, New Directions in Rhetoric and Materiality Series, 2018. Print.
Propen, Amy D. and Mary Lay Schuster. Rhetoric and Communication Perspectives on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault: Policy and Protocol Through Discourse. New York: Routledge Studies in Technical Communication, Rhetoric, and Culture, 2017. Print.
Weiss, Dennis, Amy D. Propen, and Colbey Reid, Eds. Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman. Lanham: Lexington Books, Series in Postphenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology, 2014. Print.
Propen, Amy D. Locating Visual-Material Rhetorics: The Map, the Mill, and the GPS. Anderson: Parlor Press, 2012. Print.
Schuster, Mary Lay and Amy D. Propen. Victim Advocacy in the Courtroom: Persuasive Practices in Domestic Violence and Child Protection Cases. Boston: Northeastern UP, 2011. Print.
Articles and Chapters
Propen, Amy D. Rev. of Touching This Leviathan, by Peter Wayne Moe. Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 53.4 (2023): 596-607.
Propen, Amy D. “Science Communication, Visual Rhetoric, and eBird: The Role of Participatory Science Communication in Fostering Empathy for Species.” The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Communication. Eds. Hanganu-Bresch, Cristina, Stefania Maci, Michael Zerbe, and Gabriel Cutrufello. New York: Routledge, 2022. 324-333.
Propen, Amy D. “Going Bananas Over Copyright: Monkey Selfies and the Intersections of Rhetoric, Intellectual Property, and Animal Studies.” The CCCC-IP Annual. Web. May 2018.
Propen, Amy D. “Technologies of Mediation and the Borders and Boundaries of Human-Nonhuman Animal Relationships in Marine Species Advocacy.” Rhetoric Across Borders. Ed. Anne Teresa Demo. Anderson: Parlor Press, 2015. 213-224.
Propen, Amy D. “Open Data, Environmental Conservation, and the Digital Humanities: Mapping the Mangroves.” The CCCC-IP Annual. Web. June 2015.
Schuster, Mary Lay and Amy D. Propen. “Expanding Our Understanding of Kairos: Tracing Moral Panic and Risk Perception in the Debate over the Minnesota Sex Offender Program.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 45.1 (2015): 3-30.
Propen, Amy D. “The Rhetorical Work of the GPS: Geographic Knowledge-Making and the Technologically-Mediated Body.” Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman. Ed. Dennis Weiss, Amy Propen, and Colbey Reid. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014. 23-40.
Propen, Amy D. “‘I Have Sometimes Seen the White Cloth Winding over the Rollers … And I Have Thought it Beautiful': Reading the Mill Girls’ Narratives as Artifacts of Material Rhetoric.” Material Culture Review. Spring/Fall (2013): 107-122.
Propen, Amy D. “Reading the Atlas of the Patagonian Sea: Toward a Visual-Material Rhetorics of Environmental Advocacy.” Environmental Rhetoric and Ecologies of Place. Ed. Peter Goggin. New York: Routledge, 2013. 127-142.
Propen, Amy D. and Mary Lay Schuster. “Understanding Genre through the Lens of Advocacy: The Rhetorical Work of the Victim Impact Statement.” Written Communication. 27.1 (2010): 3-35. Winner of 2010 John R. Hayes Award for Excellence in Writing Research.
Schuster, Mary Lay and Amy Propen. “Victim Impact Statements and the Domestic Violence Victim: Judicial Responses to Emotion in the Courtroom.” Law, Culture & the Humanities. 6.1 (2010): 75-104.
Propen, Amy D. “Cartographic Representation and the Construction of Lived Worlds: Understanding Cartographic Practice as Embodied Knowledge.” Rethinking Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory. Ed. Martin Dodge, Rob Kitchin, and Chris Perkins. New York: Routledge, 2009. 113-130.
Propen, Amy and Mary Lay Schuster. “Making Academic Work Advocacy Work: Technologies of Power in the Public Arena.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication. Special Issue: Business and Technical Communication in the Public Sphere. 22.3 (2008): 299-329.
Propen, Amy. “Visual Communication and the Map: How Maps as Visual Objects Convey Meaning in Specific Contexts.” Technical Communication Quarterly. 16.2 (2007): 233-254.
Propen, Amy. “Critical GPS: Toward a New Politics of Location.” ACME: An International E-Journal of Critical Geographies. Special Issue: Critical Cartographies. 4.1 (2005): 131-144.