Author: Jordan Carswell

Acknowledgment We thank all contributors of the 17th Blog Carnival for their insightful perspectives, discussions, and examples of rhetoric and communication in the time of COVID-19. In our CFP for this blog carnival, we called upon contributors to “explore the rhetorics, discourses, and perspectives around COVID-19, to examine the potential consequences and ramifications of the pandemic, and/or to create possible action plans at the individual, local, national, and global levels.” We are grateful for the examples provided by the contributors intersecting theoretical explorations and pedagogical practices. Entries in this blog carnival offer a good mix of transnational conversations, personal and…

With the advent of COVID-19 and subsequent running event postponements and cancellations, there has been a rise in virtual recreational running events. Prior to this life-altering epidemic, virtual running events were relegated to the margins and were not given respect in the running community. While some may view the cancellation of “in-person” running events as a loss, I posit that the migration from in-person to virtual running events introduces an opportunity for vernacular rhetorics in the women’s running community to change the dominant narrative in the sport and promote inclusivity. Given that the majority of runners who enter recreational running…

On April 4, 2020, I read an article from the BBC which reported that 5G towers in the UK were being destroyed, lit on fire by people who believed that the rise of 5G infrastructure was causing COVID-19 symptoms not a virus. This vandalism is a tangible outcome of some people’s overzealous belief in the conspiracy theories that tend to crop up in times of great uncertainty. This explains why on May 04, 2020, I was not surprised to find “Plandemic,” a polished, documentary-style COVID-19 conspiracy theory video had made the rounds on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook garnering millions of…

On March 15, as the CDC advised against gatherings of 50 people or more and states like Illinois were banning in-person dining, longtime self-publisher Marc Fischer got to work on his risograph machine, printing 100 copies of the first issue of Quaranzine in his Chicago basement. He was grappling with the gravity of the spreading pandemic and kept busy by photographing and writing about his compost worms. The result — a two-sided, one-page zine — included images of his worms with the text: “These worms have the luxury of not knowing about the Corona virus. They are out there eatin’…