Confronting Toxic Rhetoric

Advance Praise for Confronting Toxic Rhetoric: Writing Teachers’ Experiences of Rupture, Resistance, and Resilience

“Toxic rhetoric is the proverbial fly in the soup of our political and public discourse, poisoning our politics, and by extension, our classrooms. Confronting Toxic Rhetoric takes up the arduous task of treating the contamination in our classrooms while encouraging us to advance the work of decontamination in our broader rhetorical ecosystems.”

—Ryan Skinnell, Editor of Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us About Donald J. Trump

Confronting Toxic Rhetoric

Writing Teachers’ Experiences of Rupture, Resistance, and Resilience

Edited by Jamie White-Farnham, Cathryn Molloy and Bryna Siegel Finer

New York - Berlin - Bruxelles - Chennai - Lausanne - Oxford

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISSN 1080-5397

ISBN 9781636679914 (hardback)

ISBN 9783034353038 (paperback)

ISBN 9781636679921 (ebook pdf)

ISBN 9781636679938 (epub)

DOI 10.3726/b21855

© 2025 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne

Published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA

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This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the editors

Jamie White-Farnham is Professor in the Writing Program and Director of Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Her research on feminist and material rhetorics, women’s health rhetorics, and antiracist rhetorics can be found in College English, Rhetoric Review, Computers & Compositions, among others. She is the co-editor of Writing Program Architecture and Women’s Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21^st Century and co-author of Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health (2023).

Cathryn Molloy is Professor of Writing Studies in the University of Delaware’s Department of English. She is co-editor of the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine journal as well as co-editor of the books Strategic Interventions in Mental Health Rhetoric, and Women’s Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21^st Century. She is the author of Rhetorical Ethos in Health and Medicine: Patient Credibility, Stigma, and Misdiagnosis (2020) and co-author of Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health (2023).

Bryna Siegel Finer is Professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Writing Programs at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is associate editor of the Rhetoric of Health & Medicine journal as well as co-editor of the Writing Spaces book series. Her research focuses primarily on women’s health rhetorics and writing program administration and has been published in Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, Rhetoric Review, Teaching English in the Two Year College, Journal of Writing Assessment, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor of Writing Program Architecture and Women’s Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21^st Century, and co-author of Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health.

About the book

Confronting Toxic Rhetoric contributes to the extant scholarship on toxic rhetoric, specifically the negative and extreme political discourse surrounding the Trump years of campaigning, rallying, tweeting, holding office, and the ongoing culture war in the US (Duffy, 2020). Toxic rhetoric challenged the foundational purposes of teaching writing and rhetoric, such as ethical argumentation and critical thinking. Teachers’ narratives, case studies, and reflections bring to light the ruptures, resistance, and resilience of teaching amid the extreme polarization of partisan politics, distrust of science, and increased hate speech, among other issues associated withtoxic rhetoric.

Readers will learn from teachers who were challenged to cope with toxic rhetoric, using both rhetorical and extra-disciplinary lenses. Their experiences present a vulnerable yet resolved expression of coping, activism, and belief in the future of rhetoric and democracy.

“Toxic rhetoric is the proverbial fly in the soup of our political and public discourse, poisoning our politics, and by extension, our classrooms. Confronting Toxic Rhetoric takes up the arduous task of treating the contamination in our classrooms while encouraging us to advance the work of decontamination in our broader rhetorical ecosystems.”

—Ryan Skinnell, Editor of Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us About Donald J. Trump

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

We dedicate this book to Dr. Libby Miles, who directed all three of our dissertations and taught us the value of collaboration.

Contents

1. Acknowledgments
2. Foreword: Toxic Rhetoric: Reflections on a Phrase, by John Duffy
3. 1 Confronting Toxic Rhetoric Prelude: Origin Stories of Toxic Rhetoric Jamie White-Farnham
4. Introduction Jamie White-Farnham, Cathryn Molloy, and Bryna Siegel Finer
5. Section 1 Rupture
6. 2 Site of Contention: Rhetorics of/and Stone Mountain, Georgia Whitney Jordan Adams
7. 3 When Two Sides Are Too Many: Using Fairness in Unfair Ways Craig A. Meyer
8. 4 Taking on Toxic Rhetoric in the Classroom Matthew Boedy
9. Section 2 Resistance
10. 5 From “Kung Flu” to #StopAAPIHate: Confronting Toxic Anti-AAPI Rhetoric through Contemporary Activism and Digital Literacy Liping Yang
11. 6 Responding in Real Time: A Course in Rhetoric, Propaganda, Demagoguery, and Misinformation Sarah Lonelodge
12. 7 Social, Digital Annotation as a Tool for the Future of Democratic Discourse Miranda L. Egger
13. 8 “The Action is on You!”: Examining When and Why to Engage—or not Engage—Rhetorically Bruce Bowles Jr.
14. Section 3 Resilience
15. 9 Teaching Toward Coalitions: Combating the Toxic Rhetoric Around Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Charles McMartin
16. 10 The Elephant in the Room: On Responding to Potential Toxic Rhetoric in Tutoring Sessions Sarah M. Shea
17. 11 Detoxifying Debate: Confluences of Composition and Conflict Resolution Daniel Cole
18. Postscript: (Re)Calling the Character of a Career: A Letter of Thanks to John Duffy by Rachel Ketai
19. Notes on Contributors
20. Index

Acknowledgments

This edited volume marks our third book project as a writing team, and it also opens up a new area of inquiry for the three of us. As we all navigate the complexities of life in the context of late capitalism, climate change, ever- increasing global conflict, and rapidly growing inequities, we feel fortunate to have been able to gather 12 excellent authors to weigh in on the crucial topic of toxic rhetoric. Thus, we first and foremost acknowledge the contributors who’ve taken bold steps to address some of the most daunting challenges we face as teachers and scholars of writing, rhetoric, and technical and professional communication.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to John Duffy for his scholarship that has served as inspiration for this collection. Without his moves to ask difficult questions, theorize modest solutions, and encourage further discussion, we would not have brought this book into the world.

We thank Alice Horning for her incisive feedback on this project from its inception to its completion as well as acquisitions editor, Anthony Mason, for the enthusiastic and helpful comments that made this project possible. Thanks are also due to our two excellent copy editors, PhD candidates from the University of Delaware, Holli Flanagan and Shannon Young. Their sharp and incisive edits have improved this collection greatly.