English Department News
New Writing Faculty Member Specializing in Visual Rhetoric
May 2009—The UMass Dartmouth English Department recently announced the appointment of Anthony F. Arrigo as Assistant Professor English. Professor Arrigo, a recent Ph.D. recipient from the University of Minnesota, will focus his courses on rhetoric, visual rhetoric, and technical communication.
Prior to coming to UMass Dartmouth, Arrigo taught various courses in rhetoric at the University of Minnesota and even received the 2008 Teaching Excellence Award at Minnesota. His scholastic specialties include visual rhetoric, technology and culture, multimodal literacy, technical communication, and cultural studies. Professor Arrigo has also worked in the telecommunications industry for several years along with working as a freelance graphic and Web designer for over ten years.
Having never offered, strictly curriculum based visual rhetoric courses, the English Department is venturing into a rhetorical and educational frontier. Professor Arrigo will bring a fresh outlook and educational opportunities in visual rhetoric to the English Department and its students.
As a scholar of rhetoric and visual communication, he conducts interdisciplinary research that seeks to illuminate the interconnections between visuality, technology, culture, and nature. Specifically, he is interested in how various communicative modalities such as photographs, film, and built environments (e.g., public monuments, architecture, etc.) shape and are shaped by cultural values. While his research draws primarily from methodological approaches in rhetoric/communication studies, it is also strongly informed by scholarship in cultural studies and environmental studies.
Professor Arrigo's interests outside of the academia range from architecture to live music. He is very excited to be at UMass Dartmouth and looks forward to teaching many courses in visual rhetoric and technical communication.
