UW-Parkside Communication Professor Dr. Theresa Castor contributed to newly published book on water justice
SOMERS – UW-Parkside Communication Professor Dr. Theresa Castor co-edited (together with Dr. Casey Schmitt and Dr. Christopher Thomas) and contributed a chapter to the recently published “Water, Rhetoric, and Social Justice: A Critical Confluence.” The book examines how individuals and communities have responded on a global scale to present-day water crises as matters of social justice.
Dr. Castor and her fellow editors put out a call for chapters, provided feedback to the authors, contributed their own individual chapters to the book, and also collaborated on writing the introduction to the book and introductions for the individual sections. The chapters focus on the global scope of water justice, with case examples from North America and around the planet. Dr. Castor’s chapter focuses on the water diversions happening in southeast Wisconsin and the public hearings surrounding them. In short, public communication about water.
“We do hope it will be used in college classrooms. I imagine it would appeal to graduate courses but also to undergraduate courses,” said Dr. Castor, who also serves as chair of the UW-Parkside Communication Department. Though the publisher website specifically points out that scholars of rhetoric, sociology, activism, communication and environmental studies will find the book particularly useful, Dr. Castor hopes that the book will be picked up by anyone from the public. It is available on Amazon for purchase.
Dr. Schmitt served as lead editor of the text and teaches rhetoric and communication at Gonzaga University. His personal research focus is on environmental narrative, ecological debates, and ethnographic fieldwork. His secondary research includes studies on the social import of American folk narrative, representations of indigenous Americans, and popular culture.
Dr. Thomas was the second editor for the text. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the College at Brockport. Dr. Thomas joined Brockport after completing his Ph.D. in rhetoric and public advocacy as well as a certificate in gender, women, and sexuality studies at the University of Iowa.
Dr. Castor conducts research on organizational decision-making, focusing on crisis and problem situations in meetings and governance groups. She graduated from the University of Washington with a Ph.D. in speech communication. Dr. Castor's research examines discourse in meetings and organizational and group decision-making. She has studied nonprofit boards, school boards, university governance, public community development meetings, and student discussion groups. In addition to her work on decision-making, she has written on communication and social constructionism. Her work has been published in Management Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Business Communication, Discourse Studies, Communication Yearbook, the International Journal of Public Participation, and the Electronic Journal of Communication.
“Water, Rhetoric, and Social Justice: A Critical Confluence” is now available through Lexington Books and on Amazon.