Professor
2005, PhD English, Pennsylvania State University
2002, MA English, Pennsylvania State University
2000, BA Honours, English, Glendon College, York University
Bio
My research connects rhetorics of science, medicine, technology, and gender across a variety of contexts. My first book, Science on the Home Front: American Women Scientists in World War II (University of Illinois Press, 2009), examined how women contributed to wartime research in anthropology, nutrition, psychology, and physics and how the genres they wrote, from technical reports to field notes to nutrition guidelines, often obscured their contributions and their perspectives. My second book, Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks (University of Illinois Press, 2014), constructs a rhetorical history of autism by studying how scientific theories draw on contemporaneous understandings of gender and how autism advocates often play the roles of gendered characters, from “mother warriors” to “paternal doctors.” My third book, Raveling the Brain: Toward a Transdisciplinary Neurorhetoric (Ohio State University Press, 2019), outlines how the humanities—and in particular, rhetoric—have much to add to the neurosciences, offering rich insights into how the brain is enmeshed in the body, in culture, and in discourse.
I also co-direct the HHIVE Lab (hhive.unc.edu), where I work with undergraduate and graduate students on collaborative projects in health humanities. You can find some recent collaborative articles and book chapters that draw from this research here (http://jordynnjack.com/articles/).
To read more, visit my website.
To read more, visit my websitePublications:
Books:
Raveling the Brain: Toward a Transdisciplinary Neurorhetoric. Ohio State University Press, 2019.
Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014.
Science on the Home Front: The Rhetoric of Women Scientists During World War II. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Recent Articles:
“The Cognitive Vernacular as Normative Mandate in Habits of Mind.” College English (accepted, forthcoming).
“Chronotopic Expertise: Enacting Water Ontologies in a Wind Energy Debate in Ontario, Canada.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 52.5 (2022) (accepted, forthcoming).
“Redefining Rhetorical Figures through Cognitive Ecologies: Repetition and Description in a Canadian Wind Energy Debate.” Rhetoric Review 41.1 (2022): 1-16.
Awards
- Awards
-
- Article of the Year Award for “Healing Arts: Rhetorical Techne as Medical (Humanities) Intervention.” The Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine. 2019.
- Winner of the 2015 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award for Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks.
- Winner of Feminist Scholarship Award, Organization for Research on Women and Communication, 2013 for “Gender Copia: Feminist Rhetorical Perspectives on an Autistic Concept of Sex/Gender.” (Women’s Studies in Communication 35.1 (2012): 1-17.)
- Winner of the Kathleen Ethel Welch Outstanding Article Award, Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, 2013 for “Remembering Sappho: New Perspectives on Teaching (and Writing) Women’s Rhetorical History.” (co-author, Jessica Enoch. College English 73.5 (2011): 518-537.)
- Grants
- Undergraduate Research Consultant Team (URCT) Award, 2018. Office of Undergraduate Research, UNC-Chapel Hill. ($5000). P.I. Jordynn Jack. Co-investigators: Maebelle Mathew, Pragnya Dontu, Destiny Ho, Shweta Bhatnagar, Akhila Boyina (UNC undergraduate students), and Laura Young (Department of Medicine, UNC).
- Creativity Hub Pilot Award. 2018. P.I. Daniel Anderson. Co-investigators: Jordynn Jack (English and Comparative Literature), Ketan Mayer-Patel (Computer Science), Melanie Feinberg (Information and Library Science), and Tessa Joseph-Nicholas (Computer Science). $5000 to develop a full proposal for a Creativity Hub Award.
- Integrated Curriculum Course Development Award. 2018. Co-instructor: Mai Nguyen (City and Regional Planning). $10,000 to develop a co-taught first year seminar, “Public Persuasion: How Rhetoric Shapes Public Policy.”
Courses Taught:
- (Engl 805) Making/Rhetoric
- (Engl 801) Research Methods in Rhetoric and Composition
- (Engl 706)Practicum in Rhetoric and Composition
- (Engl 695) Health and Humanities: Intensive Research Practice
- (Engl 300i) Writing for the Health Professions
- (Engl 303) Scientific and Technical Communication
- (Engl 318) Multimedia Composition
- (Engl 105i) Writing in the Natural Sciences