Erika M. Sparby, PhD
  • Home
  • CV
  • Research and Teaching
    • Research Statement
    • Teaching Philosophy
    • Courses Taught
  • Home
  • CV
  • Research and Teaching
    • Research Statement
    • Teaching Philosophy
    • Courses Taught
Erika M. Sparby, PhD

Curriculum vitae

last updated 11.7.22

Education

2017
PhD in English (Rhetoric and Composition; Technical Communication)
Certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Fall 2015
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL
 
Dissertation: Memes and 4chan and Haters, Oh My! Rhetoric, Identity, and Online Aggression
Committee: Jessica Reyman (chair); Michael Day; Kristen Myers
2011
​MA in English
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
​2008
BA in English
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL

Academic Appointments

2022 - Present
Illinois State University, Associate Professor of Digital Rhetorics and Technical Communication
  • Affiliate Faculty status with Women's and Gender Studies
2017 - 2022
Illinois State University, Assistant Professor of  Digital Rhetorics and Technical Communication
  • Affiliate Faculty status with Women's and Gender Studies

Administrative Roles

August 2022 - Present
Interim Associate Chair
​Department of English, Illinois State University

Publications

ORCID
ORCID iD iconhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1790-3831
Single Author Monographs
Sparby, Erika M. (2023). Memetic rhetorics: Building a rhetorical toolkit for ethical meming. University of Michigan Press, Sweetland DRC Series.

Edited Collections

​Reyman, Jessica & Sparby, Erika M. (Eds.). (2020). ​Digital ethics: Rhetoric and responsibility in online aggression. Routledge.
​Winner of the 2019 Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award

Peer Reviewed Articles
Sparby, Erika M. (2022). ​Meming the Party Divide: Representation of Gender in Political Memes
. enculturation.

Cox, Courtney & Sparby, Erika M. (2022). Investigating disembodied risk in university crisis communications during COVID-19. Communication Design Quarterly.
​
Bishop, Tiffany, Capan, Emily, Larsen, Brittany, Preston, Raven, & Sparby, Erika M. (2021). Tactical risk communication: Observations from teaching and learning about risk communication during COVID-19. Technical Communication Quarterly.

Sparby, Erika M. (2021). Reading mean comments to subvert gendered hate on YouTube: Toward a spectrum of digital aggression response. enculturation.

Sparby, Erika M. (2017). Digital social media and aggression: Memetic Rhetoric in 4chan’s Collective Identity. Computers and Composition, 45, pp. 85-97.

Peer Reviewed Book Chapters

Sparby, Erika M. ​(2022). Toward a feminist ethic of self-care and protection when researching digital aggression. In Crystal VanKooten & Victor del Hierro (Eds.) Methods and Methodologies for Research in Digital Writing and Rhetoric. WAC Clearinghouse.

Cox, Courtney & Sparby, Erika M. Toward an audience-centered approach: Rhetorical analysis of university crisis communication emails. (2022). In Samuel Stinson & Mary Le Rouge (Eds.) Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication: Problems and Solutions Toward Social Sustainability. Routledge.

Reyman, Jessica & Sparby, Erika M. (2020). Introduction: Toward an ethic of responsibility in digital aggression. In Jessica Reyman & Erika M. Sparby (Eds.) Digital ethics: Rhetoric and responsibility in online aggression (pp. 1-15). New York: Routledge.

Lukowski, Alison & Sparby, Erika M. (2016). Breastfeeding, authority, and genre: Women’s ethos in Wikipedia and blogs. In Establishing and Evaluating Digital Ethos and Online Credibility, pp. 329-347.

Editorial Work

Book Review Editor for Communication Design Quarterly
            October 2021 – Present
 
Associate Editor for Best of rhetoric and composition 2018. (2019). Parlor Press.

Awards and Grants

National
2020
2019 Distinguished Book Award, Computers and Composition
​2018
2017 Hugh Burns Best Dissertation Award, Computers and Composition
2016
Gloria Anzaldúa Rhetorician Award, Conference on College Composition and Communication
Institutional
2021
Alice and Fannie Fell Trust (with Ela Przybylo), ISU, to fund “Zine-making Toward Social Change: Activism, Rhetoric, and Minoritarian Cultures"

Sage Fund (with Ela Przybylo), ISU, to fund “Zine-Making Toward Social Change: Activism, Rhetoric, and Publishing Minoritarian Cultures”

Nominated for ISU Research Initiative Award, ISU
2020
Alice and Fannie Fell Trust (with Ela Przybylo), ISU, to fund “Podcasting Toward Social Change: Sound-Based Pedagogy and Scholarship”
 
Sage Fund (with Ela Przybylo), ISU, to fund “Podcasting Toward Social Change: Sound-Based Pedagogy and Scholarship”

Teaching Innovation Grant (with Ela Przybylo), CTLT/ISU, to fund “Developing Anti-Racist Pedagogies at ISU”

​Nominated for the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching by a Pre-Tenured Faculty Member, ISU
2019
Sigma Tau Delta Outstanding Faculty Member Award, ISU

Exceptional Teacher of the Year Award—Assistant Professor, ISU English department

Pre-Tenure Faculty Initiative Grant, ISU

​2017-2018 Outstanding Dissertation Award in Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, NIU

​
Nominated for the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching by a Pre-Tenured Faculty Member, ISU
2018
New Faculty Initiative Grant, ISU

​
Nominated for the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching by a Pre-Tenured Faculty Member, ISU
2017
New Faculty Startup Support, ISU

​Outstanding Women Student Award, NIU’s Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
2016
Dr. Mary Sue Schriber Junior Scholar in Women’s Literature and Language Scholarship, NIU            ​
 
Director's Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award for Excellence in Teaching First-Year Composition, NIU 
2015
Arnold B. Fox Graduate Research Writing Award (second place), NIU
2014, 2015, 2016
Graduate Student Travel Grant, NIU

Presentations

National and International Conferences
2022
Przybyło, Ela & Sparby, Erika M. (November 2022). Ace gaze: Asexuality on TikTok. Paper presented during the sponsored panel Reclaiming Asexualities from Within and Without at the National Women’s Studies Association 42nd Annual Conference. Minneapolis, MN. 

​Tactical Meming. Workshop given at the Association for Teachers of Technical Writing Conference, online.

Butler, Janine; Craig, Todd; Del Hierro, Victor; Lauren, Ben; Sparby, Erika M.; & VanKooten, Crystal. (May 2022). Methods and Methodologies for Research in Digital Rhetoric: What We’ve Learned through Sharing How and Why We Do Digital Research – Part 2. Roundtable at Computers and Writing. Greenville, NC and online.
2021
Memetic Critical Power Tools: Teaching an Ethic of Privacy and Identity for Memes in the Technical Communication Classroom. Paper presented at the Association for Teachers of Technical Writing Conference, online. (Rescheduled from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic)
2020
Ethically Engaging with Digital Activism and Digital Media. Roundtable accepted to Computers and Writing, Greenville, NC. (Conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic)
 
YouTube, Haters, and Reading Mean Comments: Testing a Rhetorical-Ethical Approach to Studying Online Aggression. Paper accepted to Conference on College Composition and Communication, Milwaukee, WI. (Conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic)
2019






Toward a Theory of Digital Aggression and Memetic Screens. Paper presented at Computers and Writing, June 2019, East Lansing, MI
 
Toward an Ethic of Self-Care and Protection When Researching Digital Aggression. Paper presented as part of a co-organized panel on “New Ethical Frameworks for Researching Digital Aggression” at Computers and Writing, June 2019, East Lansing, MI
 
Political Memes and the Party Divide: A Case Study of Kim Davis and Hillary Clinton Memes. Paper presented at the Digital Rhetoric/Digital Media in the Post-Truth Age symposium, March 2019, Tuscaloosa, AL
2018






Toward a Theory of Memetic Screens. Paper accepted to the Rhetoric Society of America Conference, June 2018, Minneapolis, MN (accepted, but was unable to attend because of family emergency)

Behind the Scenes of Digital Aggression Research: Identity, Method, Action, and Self-Care. Roundtable at Computers and Writing, May 2018, Fairfax, VA

When Trolls Become Technical Communicators: A Case Study of iOS8 and Wave. Paper presented at the Association for the Teachers of Technical Writing Conference, March 2018, Kansas City, KS
2017
​
Meming/Counter-Meming: Remixing Negative Memes to Deconstruct Stereotypes. Paper presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, March 2017, Portland, OR
2016



Fake Geek Girl, Remixed: Resisting Negative Stereotypes through Counter-Memes. Paper presented at Cultural Rhetorics, October 2016, East Lansing, MI

Anonymity, Design, and Identification: The Rhetorical Construction of Identity on Digital Social Media. Paper presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, April 2016, Houston, TX
2015
​
Digitizing Analog Networks to Share and Reflect on Student Writing (with Michael Day, Alison Lukowski, and Dustin ​Marquis) Paper presented at Computers and Writing, May 2015, Menomonie, WI
2014

Where Do Women Work? Wikipedia, Blogs, and the Space of Authority (with Alison Lukowski). Paper presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication Feminisms Workshop, April 2014, Indianapolis, IN
Invited Speaker
2020
Digital aggression: Research, experience, and policy. Invited participant for Leveled: Gendered online aggression and the move toward equality in the digital workplace, hosted by the University of Michigan IRWG program.
2019
Ethical meming—How can we meme inclusively? Invited keynote presentation at 2019 LangRhet Conference (University of Michigan). Ann Arbor, MI.
Workshops and Working Groups
2019


Digital Aggression Working Group, Computers and Writing, June 2019, East Lansing, MI

Indigenous Working Group, Rhetoric Society of America Project in Power, Place, and Publics, May 2019, Reno, NV
Local Speaking Invitations
2019


​Digital rhetorics and an ethic of responsibility in online aggression. ISU English Department’s faculty speaker series. November 2019, Normal, IL.

Online Aggression and What We Can Do About It (with Jessica Reyman), NIU STEM Cafe, March 2019, DeKalb, IL
2018



Presentation on methods and methodology used in my dissertation, for Bob Broad’s ENG 497 Research Methods in Composition Studies course at ISU, Spring 2018

Panelist at a roundtable about the first-year faculty experience, for ISU’s Graduate School, Spring 2018
2017









Meme/Counter-Meme: Remixing Negative Memes to Deconstruct Stereotypes, for the ISU Sigma Tau Delta initiation ceremony, Fall 2017
​
Panelist at the “Navigating the Writing Process” workshop, for ISU’s Graduate School, October 2017

Panelist at the “Preparing for the Job Market” workshop, for NIU’s English department, May 2017

Panelist at the “How do I get published?” workshop, for NIU’s Graduate School and Office of Research Compliance, April 6, 2017

Methods and Methodology in Rhetoric, for Courtney Gallaher's WOMS 630 Feminist Research course at NIU, March 22, 2016 and March 29, 2017
2016
​
Design, Ethos, and Identification: Memetic Identity Performance on Digital Social Media, for Jessica Reyman's ​ENGL 703 Seminar in Digital Rhetoric at NIU, March 29, 2016
2015


Eportfolio Integration, for First Friday Professional Development with NIU's First-Year Composition Program. ​February 13, 2015

FYComp Writing in the Domains (with Kelsey Williams), for NIU's First-Year Composition Retention Summit. January 9, 2015
2014



​
"Integrating ePortfolios in the FYC Classroom." For First Friday Professional Development with NIU's First-Year Composition Program. October 6, 2014
​
"Using Blogs in the Classroom." For First Friday Professional Development with NIU's First-Year Composition Program. ​​March 3, 2014

Professional Activities

Organizational Membership
Digital Aggression Working Group (DAWG) (Co-Founder)
Association for Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW)
Society of Technical Communication (STC)
Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)
National Council of Teachers of English (NTCE)
Rhetoric Society of America (RSA)
National Women's Studies Association (NWSA)
Organized Workshops and Events
With Ela Przybyło. (February 2022). Zine-making Toward Social Change: Activism, Rhetoric, and Publishing Minoritarian Cultures. Event featuring Adela C. Licona, Aleksandra Kamińska and Agata Barbara Wnuk (Girls* to the Front) and Yingchen Kwok and Ying Tong (an aromantic manifesto)

With Ela Przybyło. (February and March 2021). Podcasting Toward Social Change: Sound-Based Pedagogy and Scholarship During COVID-19. Speaker series featuring Joi Adams, Ada Jaarsma, and Hannah McGregor

With Ela Przybyło and Raven Preston. (December 2020). Antiracist Pedagogies Workshop. This workshop featured student specialists (Nina Hanee Jang, Chamelia Moore, and Eric Korankye) who gave antiracist pedagogical feedback to teachers in the English Department

Illinois State University
2020 - Present
2020 - 2022
2019-2020
2018 - 2022
2018 - 2019
2017 - Present
Member, Queer Coalition
Co-Faculty Advisor, Rhetoric Society of America, ISU Chapter
Faculty Advisor, Rhetoric Society of America, ISU Chapter
Faculty Advisor, Nintendo Appreciation Club, ISU
Co-Faculty Advisor, Rhetoric Society of America, ISU Chapter
Faculty member, Rhetoric Society of America, ISU Chapter
Northern Illinois University
Fall 2016 - Spring 2017
Member, Digital Humanities Initiative
Fall 2016 - Spring 2017
Founding Member, Rhetoric Research Forum
2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
Panel Moderator, Midwest Conference on Language, Literature, and Media, NIU
2012
First-Year Composition pedagogical training:
Week-long workshop and two-course sequence on teaching first-year composition courses and classroom visits from First-Year Composition administrators
2011
Editorial Staff for Style, Volume 46, Issues 3 and 4 (Fall/Winter 2012)
University of Colorado
2010
Certificate in College Teaching:
Certification through the Graduate Teacher Program of 20+ hours of pedagogy workshops, one semester of weekly pedagogy seminars, two video-taped consultations, and two recommendation letters of teaching excellence from home department

Teaching Experience

Illinois State University, 2017 - Present
Technical Writing I (ENG 249 | F2F and online)
​Rhetorical Theory and Application (ENG 283
 | F2F)
Technical Writing II (ENG 349 | F2F and online)
Visible Rhetorics (ENG 350 | F2F)
Hypertext/Digital Rhetorics (ENG 351 | F2F, online, and emergency remote)
Histories and Theories of Technical Communication (ENG 449)
Topics in Technical Writing: Technical Communication in the Zombie Apocalypse (ENG 451 | F2F and emergency remote)
The Teaching of Technical Writing (ENG 452)

Technology and English Studies (ENG 467  | F2F)
Research Methods in Rhetoric and Composition (ENG 497 | online)
Seminar in Rhetoric and Composition: Memetic Rhetorics (ENG 590 | F2F)
Northern Illinois University, 2012 – 2017
Writing for Electronic Media (ENGL 424)  
Technical Writing (ENGL 308)   
Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition (ENGL 103) 
Introduction to Researched Writing in the Domains (ENGL 104/203)     
Introduction to the Basics of Grammar (ENGL 207, Teaching Assistant)
University of Colorado, 2009
Introduction to Literary Theory (ENGL 1010, Teaching Assistant)
Institute of Reading Development, Summer 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017; Fall 2015

Mentorship

PhD Dissertations Directed
  • Tiffany Bishop, TBD (in progress)
  • Alyssa Herman, TBD (in progress)
  • ​Charles Woods, ​“Interrogating Privacy Rhetorics on Genealogy Websites” (defended Summer 2021)

PhD Dissertation Committees
  • Emily Capan, "The Overlooked Pandemic Pedagogical Genre: Writing Teachers’ Risk and Crisis Technical Communication Emails to Students" (in progress)​    ​
  • Teigha VanHester, “From Violent Inceptions to Unapologetic Existence: Radical Assemblage, Erotic Imagination, and Defiant Storying of QTBIPOC as Sovereign Practice and Rhetorical Framework for Afrofutures” (defended Summer 2022)
  • Matthew Schering, “The Perennial Quest: Equitable Assessment with The Student-Centric Learning Contract” (defended Summer 2022)
  • Courtney Cox, “Defining Compulsory Academic Genres: A Feminist Rhetorical Interrogation of Required Institutional Practices” (defended Spring 2022)
​
PhD Specialization Exams Advised
  • Tiffany Bishop, TBD (in progress)
  • Charles Woods, “The Interdependence of Bytes and Genes” (completed Spring 2020)
 
PhD English Studies Exams Advised
  • Emily Capan, “COVID-19 Pandemic Risk and Crisis Technical Communication at Illinois State University: Coalition Building Between University Leaders, Instructors, and Students Through Email” (completed Spring 2021)
 
PhD Teaching Internships Advised
  • Alyssa Herman, TBD (in progress)
  • Brittany Larsen, “Where Do I Go from Here? A Course on Locating Oneself in Public Discourse” (completed Spring 2022)
  • Charles Woods, “Establishing a Digital Identity-Attentive Cultural Rhetorical Methodology for Teaching Technical Communication” (completed Spring 2020)
  • Matthew Schering, “English 145 Internship: Contemplating Contracts” (completed Spring 2020)
  • Teigha Van, “Finding One’s Unapologetic Self: An Investigation in Rhetorical Invention, Intersectionality and Community in the Composition Classroom” (completed Spring 2019)
MA/MS Theses Directed
  • Dorothy Stone, "Anti-Racist Pedagogy with Asian American Rhetorics" (in progress)
    • ​Mentoring for this project was started by Dr. Angela Haas
  • Sydney Klem, "Toward a Theory of Procedural Rhetorical Systems - How Players Take up and Subvert the Rhetoric of Video Games” (defended Fall 2019)
  • Brittany Larsen, “Gatekeeping Remix: Fandom Spaces and Identity Politics” (defended Summer 2019)
  
MS Portfolios Directed
  • Timothy Wyland, “A User Centered Participatory Framework for Marketing” (defended Fall 2019)
 
MA/MS Thesis and Portfolio Committees
  • Raven Preston, TBD (thesis, in progress)
  • Nkeiruka Nwobodo, “The Dynamics of Effective Usability in Technical Writing: A Portfolio in Professional Writing and Rhetoric” (portfolio, defended Fall 2020)
Undergraduate Students Mentored
  • Sarah Klumpp, advisor for Interdisciplinary Studies minor (in progress)
Outside Reader
  • Jayde Rice (East Carolina University), “Queer Rhetorics of Identity Definition and Strategic Exclusion: A Mixed-Methods Study of Collective and Individual Identity in the Furry Fandom” (PhD dissertation, in progress)​
  • Emily Gresbrink (University of Minnesota), TBA (PhD dissertation, in progress)

Service

Community
Feb 2018 - Feb 2022
Website manager and content developer, Duque Institute of Martial Arts (Ottawa, IL)
Professional
Fall 2021 - Present
​Spring 2019
Book Review Editor for Communication Design Quarterly
J​udge for Hugh Burns Dissertation Award
October 2018 – Present
Reviewer for Rhetoric Review
2019, 2020
Invited reviewer for conference proposals, Computers and Writing
2018, 2019, 2020/1
Invited reviewer for conference proposals, ATTW
Institutional
May 2022 - Present
Search committee member for Dean of College of Engineering, ISU
Fall 2020 - Spring 2022
Worked with Diane Zosky (CAS Dean) and Cassie Herbert (Assistant Professor, Philosophy) to develop a statement that would support ISU teaching faculty who receive threats of online aggression and harassment, ISU
2015 - 2017
​Member, Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, NIU
  • ​Media Intern, Spring 2015
Spring 2015
​​Participant in Illinois Regional Eportfolio Partnership (IREP), NIU
​IREP was an initiative to connect surrounding community colleges with NIU through a shared eportfolio system to allow students to easily transfer among colleges and to NIU
Department
August 2021 - May 2022
Department Council, ISU (elected position)
​August 2020 - May 2021
​Department Faculty Status Committee, ISU (elected position)
August 2019 - May 2020
Graduate Studies Committee, ISU
August 2018 - May 2019 
Department Council, ISU (elected position)
August 2017 - May 2018
Professional Growth Committee, ISU
Fall 2017 - Spring 2018
Curriculum and course development for ENG 351, ISU
2013 - 2017
First-Year Composition Committee, NIU
  • ​Assessment Subcommittee, 2013 – 2017
  • Textbook Subcommittee, 2013 – 2017
  • Eportfolio Assessment Leader, 2013 - 2017
  • Handbook Subcommittee, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017
  • Working Conditions Subcommittee Chair, 2014 – 2017
  • Eportfolio Coordinator, 2014 – 2016
  • Showcase of Student Writing Subcommittee, 2013 – 2014, 2015 – 2017
2012 - 2013
Graduate Student Advisor for Sigma Tau Delta, Xi Delta, NIU
2009 - 2010
MA student-faculty liaison, University of Colorado
Fall 2008 
Reactivated Sigma Tau Delta, Alpha Iota Sigma, University of Colorado, Fall 2008
-  Graduate Student Advisor, Spring 2009 – Spring 2011
​-  President, Fall 2008 – Spring 2009

Proudly powered by Weebly