Current Research

Planetary Persuasion

Current book project, which theorizes rhetoric in response to two broad and interrelated global issues—the era of humanity’s near-geological influence on the planet and the rapid circulation and connectivity enabled by networked digital technologies. 

These trends have made it increasingly important to be able to conceive of the planet in its entirety, something that humans can find challenging to do. As a discipline, rhetoric's interest in the connections between materiality and discourse make it uniquely situated to respond to this challenge because the challenge is both material (the scale of the planet itself generates the challenge) and discursive (the language we use to conceptualize the planet is sometimes limited). 

Being able to approach a planetary perspective is not just a conceptual/theoretical task but a practical and political one as well, something that is required to be able to address planetary concerns like global capitalism and climate collapse.

Recent Publications

Molten Circulation

Recent article outlining a materialist approach to conceptualizing rhetorical circulation.

Ecological Challenges

Collaborative chapter (with Chris Ingraham) examining unresolved complexities in rhetoric's adoption of "ecological" terminology.

Touch-Interactive Rhetoric

Collaborative chapter (with David Rieder) focusing on persuasive capacities of tactile interfaces.

DevLab

At Georgia Tech I help manage a lab space for members of the Writing and Communication Program to support technology use in their teaching and research.

Related Publications: 

Multimedia Projects

Writing with the Kinect

Custom Processing sketch designed to repurpose hand position data gathered with the Kinect into various forms of lines, dots, and other inscriptions.

Github Link: https://github.com/matthalm/kinect-write

Related Publications:

CRC19 Video

Video produced for 2019 regional Carolina Rhetoric Conference, combining interviews with six rhetoric scholars on the topic of "Rhetoric's Keywords" to serve as keynote presentation.

Vimeo Link: https://vimeo.com/mhalm/crc2019

About Me

I have a PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media from North Carolina State University. I've taught courses in composition, rhetoric, writing theory, film studies, and technical and professional communication. My research focuses on the challenges and opportunities of conceptualizing the planetary-scale nature of persuasion by developing new materialist and infrastructural approaches to rhetoric. This work incorporates technological and natural processes (which have always been entangled and are in many ways indistinguishable), from the "small" scale of everyday objects to the "deep" infrastructures of the planet.

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