Overview
My research work in rhetorical studies focuses on how physical environments shape the people who interact with them. Teaching a public memory course has also encouraged me to explore the influence of physical environments on the tourist experience at places of public memory. I’m at work on two projects, the first of which takes a rhetorical perspective on the industrial town of Pullman, Illinois, just south of Chicago. My second project examines tourist sites in the United States associated with the R.M.S. Titanic.
Selected Publications
Smith, Cynthia D. “The Rhetoric of Campus Architecture” in Communication Teacher, 30: 2016 (6-10).
DOI: 10.1080/17404622.2015.1102304
Smith, Cynthia D. “The Memory Mosaic Project and Presentation” in Communication Teacher, 29: 2015 (42-48). Click here for a copy of this article.
DOI: 10.1080/17404622.2014.985598
Smith, Cynthia D. and Bergman, Teresa. “You were on Indian Land: Remembering and Forgetting Native Americans on Alcatraz Island” In Carole Blair, Greg Dickinson, Brian Ott (Eds) Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama Press, 2010: 161-188).
Smith, Cynthia D. “Art Evangelism and the Gated Community: The Rhetorics of Thomas Kinkade’s ‘Village’” In Catherine Chaput, M.J. Braun and Danika M. Brown (Eds) Entertaining Fear: Rhetoric and the Political Economy of Social Control. New York: Peter Lang (2010): 183-202.
Smith, Cynthia D. “Evaluating Rhetorical Situations and Responses” in Teaching Ideas for the Basic Communication Course, Volume 7. Kendall-Hunt. Fall 2003, 137-147.
Smith, Cynthia D. “Discipline–It’s a ‘Good Thing’” Women’s Studies in Communication. (Fall 2000)