People

Aaron McKain, Ph.D. Student

Department of English: http://english.osu.edu/ .


Aaron McKain, Ph.D. student at The Ohio State University, works in the interdisciplinary intersection of rhetorical theory, democratic theory, and rhetorical production. Currently, this translates into studying the First Amendment, speculating on how narrative theory can invigorate rhetorical analysis, and experimenting with techniques and technologies—including digital media—that can help bridge the gap between the “fake” and the “real” in the English classroom. Aaron’s dissertation research considers the relationship between presidential politics, rhetorical ethics, and postmodern aesthetics in terms of law, spatiality, violence, and pedagogy. (It's not as bad as it sounds.) One of his recent academic publications examines whether The Daily Show can actually critique the news (Journal of American Culture, December 2005). Other projects under construction (or submission, or varying states of acceptance) involve the "Dean Scream"; digital media; evidentiary procedures in the disciplines of rhetoric and political science; narrative causality and legal logic; and avant-garde composer John Zorn. He has been assistant to the editor of the journal Narrative, a staff member of the Digital Media Project, and a consultant to the First Year Writing Program. He is currently a speechwriter for an undisclosed somebody else. In 2006, Aaron won the Vera Carter Cooley Award for excellence in teaching first-year writing. Prior to academia, Aaron was a Project Director for the Ralph Nader affiliated Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest. Prior to that, Aaron worked in a record store, played in a band, ran a PAC, schlubbed for a gubernatorial campaign, and generally tried to do all the things that he told himself that he would do someday, but in the shortest amount of time possible.