Dr Marcia Clare Allison

Profile

I am a rhetorician, semiotician, and cultural historian specialising in the intersection of ideology, politics, and communication regarding the environment, science, gender and disability equity, and cultural memory. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Associate Fellow at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) at Aarhus University in Denmark, and received my MA and PhD in Communication (with a minor in Sociology) from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, USA. Trained in the cognitive, social, and humanistic sciences of human communication, I have a MA in Contemporary Literature and Critical Theory from Goldsmiths College, University of London. I also trained at the Elite Graduate School for Cognitive Semiotics at Aarhus University as well as at the Tartu-Moscow School for Semiotics in Tartu, Estonia whilst working as an intercultural communications professional within higher education. Outside of academia, I am a freelance writer, cultural analyst, and consultant in applied semiotics, rhetoric, and social science research to help mission-driven organisations cultivate both internal and external organisational goals, create lasting societal impact, and implement diversity and equity initiatives. 

Responsibilities

• Deputy Programme Lead for BA in Media and Communication

Research interests

I’m an interdisciplinary rhetorician, semiotician, and overall qualitiative communication scholar that brings together discourse, visual, and material analyses together with science and technology studies (STS) to explore how new policies, cultural frameworks, and social norms evolve in regards to the environment, science, gender, disability equity, and cultural memory. As a former Milton Wolf Emerging Scholar from the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, my research examines how public and political deliberation takes place in this mediatised and networked era of the so-called culture wars, in which the on- and off-line world come together to curate new public and political ideological frameworks in the imagination of potential new futures. Here, I combine social science and communication methodologies to develop innovative communication theories and methodologies such as “geo-rhetorics” and “visceral rhetoric” to “read” how such deliberation takes place both through the material and natural world alongside democratic as well as online public debate. I’m therefore interested in examining the major social disparities of our time, their controversies, and how they interact: climate change and the environment; cultural memory; gender and disability inequality; biopolitics and political rhetoric; and public trust and understanding in science.

My current research projects include: the material, cultural memory, and symbolic transformation of the former Iron Curtain into a 12,500km long pan-European biodiversity conservation and public memory zone as a unique material-cultural communication strategy for the EU to secure a sustainable and hospitable continent for current and future Europeans; the UK political rhetoric of “following the science” as misinformation during the first Covid 19 lockdown; the repurposing of East German infrastructures into unique memorial museums to reframe Cold War cultural memory and promote unified European peace in the 21^st century; eco-ableism and ethos in online discourse regarding the Greta Thunberg Effect; the use of antiquity and classical rhetoric in the online Manosphere to justify gender inequality; 

Qualifications

• PhD in Communication, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, Uni of Southern California
• MA in Communication (Minor in Sociology), Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, USC
• MA in Contemporary Literature & Critical Theory, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Merit.
• BMus (Hons) in Music, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama

Professional memberships

• Rhetoric Society of America
• Rhetoric Society of Europe

Student education

I am currently the Deputy Programme Lead for the BA in Media and Communication and am the module leader for COMM2125 Visual Communication. 

I welcome BA, MA, and PhD supervision within environmental, political, gender, science, and disability communication as well as cultural memory.