Allie Rowland

Associate Professor/Maurer Director of Rhetoric and Communication Performance and Communication Arts Department
Allie Rowland poses next to St. Lawrence University podium

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9290-3615

  • PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder
  • M. Res., University of Bath, U.K.
  • B.S., James Madison University

Research Interests

How do lives come to matter? I have coined the term zoerhetorics to describe the persuasive communicative practices that makes lives important or disposable. I also study reproductive justice, the rhetoric of the human microbiome, and biocitizenship.

I direct St. Lawrence University's nationally-recognized communication across the curriculum program, the Communication Across the Disciplines Fellows. CADF fellows attend the annual Oral Communication Institute to support their integration of speaking assignments into their courses. I run Speak to Engage, a national instructor-facing website on integrating oral comm assignments into higher ed courses across the curriculum.

Selected Publications

Forthcoming 2024, Ava Marshall and Allison Rowland, “Googling for Abortion: Crisis Pregnancy Centers as Networked Misogyny,” Rhetoric of Health & Medicine Journal. Accepted for publication. [*Co-authorship with recent SLU grad based on Honors Thesis.]

2023, Covid And...How to Do Rhetoric in a Pandemic, Michigan State University Press.

  • *Book of the Year Award, Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2024

2023, Allison Rowland, “The Human Microbiome as Visceral Commons: Resisting Rhetorical Enclosure,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 53, 3.

2022, "Small dick problems: Masculine entitlement as rhetorical strategy." Quarterly Journal of Speech (2022): 1-22.

2020, Zoetropes and the Politics of HumanhoodOhio State University Press (New Directions in Rhetoric & Materiality Series). 

  • *Book of the Year Award, Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2021
  • *Honorable Mention, Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award for Outstanding Published Scholarship in Public Address, 2021
  • *Honorable Mention, Rhetoric Society of America Book Award 2021

2017, Allison L. Rowland, “Zoetropes: Turning Fetuses into Babies at the National Memorial for the Unborn.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 47:1.

2017, Allison L. Rowland and Chris Ingraham,  “How Google Street View Became Fertile Ground for Artists,” The Conversation, no. 77845.

2016, Allison L. Rowland, “Life-Saving Weapons: The Biolegitimacy of Drone Warfare.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 19:4.

2016, Chris Ingraham and Allison L. Rowland, “Performing Imperceptibility: Google Street View and the Tableau Vivant.” Surveillance & Society, 14:2.

2014, Allison L. Rowland and Peter Simonson, “The Founding Mothers of Communication Research: Towards a History of a Gendered Assemblage.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, 31:1.

Book/Media Reviews

2023, Allison Rowland, Review of Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupert Marya and Raj Patel, for Rhetoric of Health & Medicine.

2022, Rahel Madeska and Allison Rowland, Review of The Dilemma of Desire, for QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. [*Co-authorship with undergraduate student.]

2019, Allison L. Rowland, Review of Jasbir Puar's The Right to Maim: Ability, Capacity, Disability, Journal of Medical Humanities.

Classes Taught

First Year Program: #Men: Masculinities in Popular Culture

First Year Program: Queer Performances on and off the Stage

First Year Seminar: Speak Up! Rhetoric & Public Speaking

PCA 111, Rhetoric and Public Speaking (sometimes offered at Riverview Correctional Facility)

PCA 250, Research Methods in Performance & Communication Arts

PCA 315, Gender & Communication

PCA 335 Sex Talk

PCA 365 Rhetoric of Algorithms

PCA 370 Against Health: Rhetoric and the Health Humanities

PCA Special Topics: Rhetorical Theory

PCA Special Topics: Rhetoric of Life & Death

PCA Special Topics: Queer Rhetorics

Professional Affiliations

National Communication Association

Rhetoric Society of America

Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Contact Information