B.A., Benedictine University
M.A., University of Northern Colorado
Ph.D, University of South Carolina
Dr. Ben Harley joined the Northern faculty as an assistant professor of English in 2018. His work focuses on rhetoric and composition - ways in which humans create and circulate texts in order to persuade and be persuaded. Many of his courses focus not only on creating persuasive texts but also on critically and ethically engaging with traditional and new media. His research largely focuses on public rhetorics, both digital and traditional, with his most recent work focusing on how the material nature of sound intimately affects bodies and can be used to create diverse communities. He has published in an array of scholarly journals, including Present Tense, The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, and Hybrid Pedagogy.
Students in all of his classes can expect to write traditional essays as well as multimodal texts that utilize a variety of communication channels (textual, visual, aural, gestural, etc.) to engage actual audiences. Students are asked to take a rhetorical approach to composition, considering their rhetorical situation in terms of audience, purpose, contexts, design, and the moment of encounter.
Learn more about his scholarship and teaching at bharleyrhetorics.com.