Being at Genetic Risk: Toward a Rhetoric of Care. Kelly Pender. University Park, PA, The Pennsylvania State Press, 2018. 174 pages, $69.95 hardcover. Publisher webpage: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08212-7.html

DOI: 10.5744/rhm.2020.1019

RHM Author Interview (Youtube video): Cassandra (Casi) Kearney, Ph.D., author of "Mass Shootings and Mental Health: A Historical Perspective on the 'Mental Illness as Motive' Narrative"

In an effort to better understand the historical significance of the "mental illness as motive" narrative, this essay investigates what has been recognized as the first mass shooting in the modern United States--Howard Unruh's 1949 mass shooting in Camden, New Jersey. Given that mass shootings were an unprecedented phenomenon, the news media played an important role in explaining the event. As will be shown, many Americans felt uncertain about how mental illness manifested and who was vulnerable. Given the often undisclosed, albeit perceived threat of schizophrenia, the public needed reassurance that there would be some indicator of insanity. Accordingly, the media used evidence of religious fanaticism and unfavorable physical descriptions of Unruh to cast him as separate, outside, or an "other." Ultimately, the media's rhetorical choices differentiated Unruh and attempted to make mental illness easier to identify for an audience afraid of its influence.

Abstract: Nine people with mental health diagnoses wrote a dialogue to discuss how we navigate our conditions and ask for accommodations within an academic setting. We cogitate on the challenges of obtaining a diagnosis, how and when we disclose, the affordances and challenges of our symptoms, seeking accommodations, and advocating for ourselves. We consider how current scholarship and other perspectives are changing the conversation about mental health in the academy. We conclude that while the 2008 revisions to the Americans with Disabilities Act have addressed necessary accommodations, that those with mental health conditions are still seeking access.

RHM Author Interview (Youtube video): Liz Angeli, Ph.D. and Christina Norwood, M.S., authors of Persuasion Brief: The Internal Rhetorical Work of a Public Health Crisis Response

This persuasion brief suggests that the rhetorical concepts of techne and rhetorical work facilitate the creation of public health crisis communication. To illustrate this claim, we present findings from a case study with the Johns Hopkins Medicine Ebola Crisis Communications Team, a transdisciplinary group that collaborated with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the 2014 Ebola crisis. The team created multimodal documentation to support healthcare providers as they prepared to treat patients and crafted communication to alleviate the fear among health workers and the public caused by the threat of Ebola. Ultimately, we frame public health crisis communication as a rhetorical endeavor guided by a focus on failure, situated expertise, and techne. This focus pushes specialists to tend to the processes involved in creating a response, and it highlights how gut feelings factor into the process of designing and implementing a public health crisis intervention.

Angeli, E., Norwood, C. (2019) "The Internal Rhetorical Work of a Public Health Crisis Response." Rhetoric of Health & Medicine 2(2): 208-231.

A Review of Rhetorical Work in Emergency Medical Services: Communicating in the Unpredictable Workplace

Marissa C. McKinley

Rhetorical Work in Emergency Medical Services: Communicating in the Unpredictable Workplace. By Elizabeth L. Angeli. New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. 204 pages, $47.95 paper, $23.98 e-book.

A Review of Bounding Biomedicine: Evidence and Rhetoric in the New Science of Alternative Medicine

J. Blake Scott

Bounding Biomedicine: Evidence and Rhetoric in the New Science of Alternative Medicine. By Colleen Derkatch. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 238 pages. $55 cloth; $10 e-book.

Transcription of RHM Editor Blake Scott's Interview with influential rhetorician of health and medicine and bioethics scholar Lisa Keränen to get her perspective on the first special issue of the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine journal on public health, co-edited by editor Lisa Melonçon and by guest editor Jennifer Malkowski.

Download includes 1) Interview transcript and 2) Appendices A, B, and C from Dr. Abby Dubisar and Sara Davis

RHM Assisant Editor Podcast Interview with Dr. David Gruber and Dr. Jason Kalin on their article,"Gut Rhetorics: Towards Experiments in Living with Microbiota"

RHM Assistant Editor Dr. Ellie Browning interviews Dr. Colleen Derkatch on her article, "The Self-Generating Language of Wellness and Natural Health"