Joddy Murray

Biography

Murray’s PhD is from Syracuse University, New York, where he studied the history of rhetorical invention, the impact of image and the imagination on composing, and the affective domain as it relates to rhetorical studies. New to Washington State University as of Fall 2003, he currently is the Director for both the Writing Center and the Digital Technologies and Culture degree at the Tri-Cities campus. He won the Weirich Teaching Award for excellence in teaching in 2003, as well as a Certificate in University Teaching from the Future Professorate Program at Syracuse University. Murray also has an M.F.A. in Poetry from University of Texas, San Marcos, and a M.Ed. in Adult Learning and Higher Education from the University of Oklahoma.

Publications

In 2002 Murray published “From Observation to Research: Interrogating the Visual as Language” in Reflections In Writing. In addition, his essay “Certeau’s Language Theory” is forthcoming in the Journal of College Writing in 2003. He has also presented papers at several national conferences, most recently including the following: “Image Writing and Non-Discursive Symbolization: The Limitations of Alphacentric Historiographies” (MMLA 2003); “‘The Feeling of What Happens’: Toward a Theory of Affect and Consciousness in Composition Studies” (CCCC 2003); and “Imagination, Image, and Identity: Composition through the Mind’s Eyes” (Watson Conference 2002). He has also published over 40 poems in journals such as Confrontation, Mindprints, The Texas Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, and The Portland Review.

Research Interests

Murray is currently exploring “white” or blank space on the web as a rhetorical use of silence in multimedia environments. He is also interested in the connections between Complexity Theory and language, specifically as the connection relates to multimedia text, ambiguity, and the architecture of non-discursive language. He continues to investigate the relationship between image and emotions, especially in terms of invention, image studies, and writing pedagogy. Moreover, Murray remains interested in writing and publishing poetry from time to time.

Graduate Teaching Interests

Recently, NCTE approved a new resolution entitled “Composing with Nonprint Media” in which teachers of English are encouraged to focus on and promote “new literacies” and “multimedia composition,” as well as help provide access for students to a “full range of composing technologies.” There is a clear trend in Composition studies to not only encourage our students to read and analyze nonprinted media, but to compose nonprinted media as well. Murray is interested in this very trend, as well as its impact on Composition pedagogy and scholarship. Courses focused on rhetorical invention, writing theory and image studies, and multimedia/multimodal composition are the most interesting to him, though he has a broad interest in rhetorical studies and language theory in general.

Links
http://www.tricity.wsu.edu/~jmurray/