Ben Wetherbee
Assistant Professor
BA, English Language and Literature, the University of Michigan
MA, Rhetoric and Composition, Miami University
PhD, Rhetoric and Composition, the University of Louisville
Ben Wetherbee serves as Assistant Professor of English and incoming Director of Composition at NMU. A rhetoric and writing specialist with interdisciplinary interests, he teaches courses in the Writing and Literacy Studies MA program, the English major, and the first-year writing unit.
Dr. Wetherbee’s research has appeared in Rhetoric Review, the Journal for the History of Rhetoric, the Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, the Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, Literacy in Composition Studies, the Henry James Review, Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society, and the Rhetoric Society of America volume Reinventing Rhetoric Scholarship, among other journals and collections. He serves as Review Editor for Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture.
Prior to joining the NMU faculty in 2023, Dr. Wetherbee served as tenure-track faculty at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, where he received the student-nominated, campus-wide Regents Award for Superior Teaching, as well as the Regents Award for Faculty Service. During this time, Dr. Wetherbee founded and edited the undergraduate research journal The Drover Review.
Outside the classroom, Dr. Wetherbee is a guitarist, songwriter, movie buff, and half-competent hockey player. He lives in Marquette with his wife, two cats, and a flotilla of stringed instruments.
Teaching Interests & Research Specialties:
- Theories and histories of rhetoric
- Rhetorics of science
- Writing pedagogy and writing program administration
- Representations of student writers
- Rhetorical perspectives on film
Selected Publications:
“Epideictic Priming amid COVID-19: Metonymy under the Microscope.” Journal for the History of Rhetoric, vol. 26, no. 2, 2023, pp. 229-42.
“Masked Meanings: COVID-19 and the Subversion of Stasis Hierarchy.” Coauthored with Genevieve Gordon. Rhetoric Review, vol. 41, no. 4, 2022, pp. 249-65.
“The Other Toulmin Model: Concepts, Topoi, Evolution.” Reinventing Rhetoric Scholarship: 50 Years of the Rhetoric Society of America, edited by Roxanne Mountford, Dave Tell, and David Blakesley, Parlor, 2020, pp. 78-86.
“‘Redemption Follows Allocution’: Dan Harmon and the #MeToo Apology.” Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, vol. 9, no. 3/4, 2019, pp. 112-25.
“Dystopoi of Memory and Invention: The Rhetorical ‘Places’ of Postmodern Dystopian Film.” Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, vol. 2, no. 2, 2018, pp. 116-34.
