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Sarah Hirsch teaches Writing 1, 2, 107J, 107M, 109HU, and 109V. She received her Ph.D. in English from UC Santa Barbara with an emphasis on American literature and maritime culture. Her current research interests are visual rhetoric and New Orleans, as she is working on the visual representation of the "X Code." The "X" was spray painted on the homes and buildings by Urban Search and Rescue teams in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Sarah's reserach focuses on the intepretation of these images and the reinterpretation and repurposing of them by New Orleans' residents. She is also working on visual, material and embodied rhetorics of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans.
Bio:
After Sarah completed her dissertation on seaports and literature of the sea, she moved to focuson one port specifically, New Orleans. From her research on the port and the city, she decided to broaden her reserach to Writing Studies and in particular the study of visual and material rhetorics. Her teaching and research correlate in certain classes she teaches, such as Writing for the Humanities (109HU). New Orleans is the focus of the class as the city and its rich history offers students a variety of subjects on which to conduct research. Students work on food, music, historical sites like the French Quarter and Congo Square, the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina, swamp landscapes, and architecture. In Sarah's 109V course, Writing for the Visual arts, students learn about visual rhetoric in order to apply it in a variety of theoretical and professional writing projects.
Publications:
Ihabiting the Icon: Shipping Containers and the New Imagination of Western Space--Western American Literature
Topograhical Ghosts: The Archival Architecture of Old New Orleans--Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture
Specters of Slavery and the Corporeal Materality of Resurrection in George Washington Cable's The Grandissimes and Octavia Butler's Kindred--South Carolina Reveiw Special Issue "The Spectral South"
Courses:
Winter 2020: Writing 107J Journalism and News Writing; Writing 107M Magazine Writing