Directory
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Robert Glenn Howard |
Expertise and Activities
I am the Associate Director of the Folklore Program and Associate Professor of Folklore, Religious Studies, and Rhetoric in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I am also editor of the journal Western Folklore.
Most broadly, my research seeks to uncover the possibilities and limits of empowerment through everyday expression on the Internet by focusing on the intersection of individual human agency and participatory performance.
I engage rhetorical theory, critical cultural theories, as well as theories of performance and performativity to explore the ways that everyday people combine their cultural and technological resources to perform their unique identities in relation to larger groups. New communication technologies are increasing the opportunities for individuals to both perform and be observed. In these public and semi-public moments of interaction, the possibilities for transformation through discourse are extended. Using ethnographic fieldwork methods, I engage online expression in order to better understand its potential--and, when necessary, consider its pitfalls.
Most recently, I am exploring how the increasing reliance on “vernacular webs” of online communication are beginning to trump the authority of more traditional information sources such as mass media. I am particularly interested in how both institutional and traditional sources for health information are giving way to the aggregated voice of thousands of everyday users exchanging their own ideas through web-based forums. In this increasing phenomenon, the power of the “the folk” is being expanded by new media technologies.
Education
- Ph.D. University of Oregon, 2001
- M.A. University of California, Los Angeles, 1996
- B.A. University of California, Berkeley, 1993
Honors and Awards
- University of Wisconsin, Faculty Development Grant, 2008
- University of Wisconsin, Cluster Enhancement Grant, 2008
- University of Wisconsin, InTime Multimedia Research Grant, 2001
- American Folklore Society, Don Yoder Prize for the Best Article in Folk Belief and Religious Folklife, 1998
Selected Works
Articles
- 2009. "Enacting a Virtual ‘Ekklesia:’ Online Christian Fundamentalism as Vernacular Religion." New Media and Society, Forthcoming.
- 2008. "The Vernacular Web of Participatory Media." Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25 (December): 490-512.
- 2008. "Electronic Hybridity: The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web." Journal of American Folklore , 121 (Spring): 192-218.
- 2006. "Sustainability and Narrative Plasticity in Online Apocalyptic Discourse after September 11, 2001." Journal of Media and Religion, 5 (1): 25-47.
- 2005. "The Double Bind of the Protestant Reformation: The Birth of Fundamentalism and the Necessity of Pluralism." Journal of Church and State, 47 (1): 91-108.
- 2005. "Toward a Theory of the Worldwide Web Vernacular: The Case for Pet Cloning." Journal of Folklore Research, 42 (3): 323-360.
- 2005. "A Theory of Vernacular Rhetoric: The Case of the 'Sinner's Prayer' Online." Folklore, 116 (2): 72-188.
- 1997. "Apocalypse in your In-Box: End-Times Communication on the Internet." Western Folklore, 56 (2/3): 295-315.
Chapters
- 2010. "Crusading on the Vernacular Web: The Folk Beliefs and Practices of Online Spiritual Warfare." Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World, Trevor J. Blank, ed. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. Forthcoming.
- 2000. "On-Line Ethnography of Dispensationalist Discourse: Revealed versus Negotiated Truth." Religion on the Internet, Jeffery K. Hadden and Douglas Cowan, eds. New York: Elsevier Press. 225-246.
Courses
- CA 347 / RS 347 - Rhetoric of Religion
- CA 472 - Rhetoric and Technology
- CA 570 - Classical Rhetorical Theory
- CA 610 - Rhetoric and the Internet
- CA 610 / FL 530 - Ethnography and Internet Communities
- CA 610 / FL 560 - Folklore in a Digital Age
- CA 969 - Vernacular Rhetoric
- CA 969 - Seminar in the Rhetorical Theory of Kenneth Burke
- CA 976 - Ethnographic Methods for Rhetorical Analysis
