Madison Jones

Madison Jones, wearing a light colored button down shit, smiling against a white background.
  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Natural Resources Science
  • Email: madisonjones@uri.edu
  • Office Location: Roosevelt Hall, Room 329
  • Website

Biography

I am an associate professor of science communication with a joint appointment in the departments of Professional/Public Writing and Natural Resources Science at the University of Rhode Island where I am a Senior Fellow at the Coastal Institute, coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Science Writing and Rhetoric, and direct the DWELL Lab. In May 2020, I received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida, with a specialization in Rhetoric & Writing Studies, where I was awarded a Preeminence Fellowship and a Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Research

I research the rhetoric of science and technology (RST) through social and historical perspectives, teach courses on science writing and environmental justice, and practice community-engagement with science using location-based technologies (e.g.—augmented reality and digital maps) as well as apply creative and digital/visual approaches to science and environmental communication. In my monograph, Inventing Ecosystems: The Rhetoric of Science in an Ecological Age (Palgrave, forthcoming 2025), I examine the shared conceptual histories of ecosystems and rhetoric. My scholarly articles have appeared in Enculturation, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Kairos, and have been recognized by CCCC/NCTE’s 2020 Best Article on Philosophy or Theory of Technical or Scientific Communication, Honorable Mention for the 2022 ARSTM Article of the Year Award, and CCCC/NCTE’s 2022 Best Article on Pedagogy or Curriculum in Technical or Scientific Communication. I am co-editor of Rhetorical Ecologies (NCTE, 2024) and Writing the Environment in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: The Ecological Awareness of Early Scribes of Nature (Lexington Books, 2015). Our collaborative work with DWELL intersects place-based writing and digital rhetoric to understand how locative media provide new possibilities for environmental advocacy and science storytelling. The lab has received support from a wide range of organizations, from the National Science Foundation to the National Endowment for the Humanities, to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, to The National Institute of Food and Agriculture. For more information, visit the DWELL Lab website: https://web.uri.edu/dwell/

Education

Ph.D., Writing and Rhetoric, University of Florida, 2020
M.A., English, Auburn University, 2014
B.A., English, University of Montevallo, 2010

Selected Publications

Books

Writing the Environment in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: The Ecological Awareness of Early Scribes of Nature. Co-edited with Steven Petersheim. Lexington Books, 2015.

Articles and book chapters (selected)

  1. “A Counter-History of Rhetorical Ecologies.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Forthcoming 2022, vol.51.
  2. “Deep Mapping for Environmental Communication Design.” Co-authored with Shannon Butts. Communication Design Quarterly, January 2021.
  3. “Trees, Anti-Advocacy, and Visual Rhetoric in Truax (A Parody of The Lorax),” invited submission for EcoComix: Essays on the Environment in Comics and Graphic Novels. Ed. Sidney I. Dobrin. McFarland, 2020.
  4. “(Re)Placing the Rhetoric of Scale: Ecoliteracy, Networked Writing, and MEmorial Mapping.” Mediating Nature: The Role of Technology in Ecological Literacy. Eds. Sidney I. Dobrin and Sean Morey. Routledge, October, 2019.
  5. “Articulate Detroit: Augmenting Public Writing.” Co-authored with Jacob Greene. Computers & Composition Online, Spring 2019.
  6. “Sylvan Rhetorics: Roots and Branches of More-Than-Human Publics.” Rhetoric Review, February 2019, vol. 38 no. 1, pp. 63-78 [Awarded the 2020 CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication Award in the category of Best Article on Philosophy or Theory of Technical or Scientific Communication].
  7. “Writing Conditions: The Premises of Ecocomposition.” Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture, Fall 2018, vol. 26, no. 1.
  8. “Augmented Vélorutionaries: Digital Rhetoric, Memorials, and Public Discourse.” Co-authored with Jacob Greene. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, Fall 2017, vol. 22, no. 1.
  9. “Plato’s Apocalyptic Rhetoric: Interpreting Bioregionalism in the Critias–Timaeus Dialogues.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Summer 2016, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 548-563.

Brief essays and book reviews

  1. “Toward an Ecology of Chora and Topoi: A Review of Rhetoric as a Posthuman Practice by Casey Boyle.” Composition Forum (Fall 2019), vol. 42.
  2. “Advertising Poetry: Remix and Digital Invention.” Digital English. Eds. Naomi Milthorpe, Robert Clarke, Joanne Jones, and Robbie Moore (Spring 2019).
  3. “Environing Media, a Review of The Undersea Network” by Nicole Starosielski. Reviewed in Digital Humanities Quarterly (Spring 2018), vol. 11, iss, 3.
  4. “Review of Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living” by Melissa Lane. Princeton UP, 2012. Reviewed in Journal of Ecocriticism (January 2018), vol. 7, iss. 2, pp. 14-15.

Courses

  • WRT 533: Graduate Writing in the Life Sciences
  • WRT 334: Science Writing
  • NRS 568: Visualizing Environmental Rhetoric
  • BES 521: Rhetorical Field Methods for Science Communication (this one is still pending committee review)