Acknowledgments & Credits
Dedication and Thanks: This project was made possible with the guidance and feedback of my mentors at Texas Tech University, as well as the encouragement of colleagues in the field of Technical Communication and Rhetoric. I am deeply grateful to Dr. J. Logan Smilges for their time, generosity, and willingness to share insights during our interview.
Credits: Webtext authored and designed by David P. Ornelas.
Thesis: Ornelas, David. (2023). White bodies, muscles, and abs: Digital and visual rhetoric within gay centered media. San Diego State University.
References:
Smilges, J. Logan. (2019). White squares to black boxes: Grindr, queerness, rhetorical silence. Rhetoric Review, 38(1), 79–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2018.1551661
Smilges, J. Logan. (2022). Queer silence: On disability and rhetorical absence. University of Minnesota Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctv29g2hwq
Smilges, J. Logan. (2023). Crip negativity. University of Minnesota Press. https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/crip-negativity
AI Usage Note: This webtext used OpenAI's ChatGPT (version 5, Sept. 2025) as a generative writing assistant. Specifically, I consulted the model to brainstorm structural options and refine APA citation formatting. I revised all generated material for accuracy, voice, and alignment with the project's scholarly aims.
Questions From Interview:
- What is your name and research interests?
- What inspired you to start on your academic journey? And how did that lead you into writing your book, Queer Silence: On Disability and Rhetorical Absence?
- The bodies you mention in your book, how are they mediated through technology? Do "bodies" serve one or many purposes that you're conveying in your book?
- Through your writing you talk about queer digital spaces but how do people embody them?
- Thinking about technology, how do you incorporate your own lived experiences from your book, within your teaching?
- How do you incorporate diversity and inclusion in your teaching? You talk about it in your book and wonder if you then relay that into your pedagogy and teaching?
- What pedagogical practices do you recommend for scholars to use when it comes to creating an inclusive classroom environment that not only makes space but respects rhetorical silences?
- In my own research from my master's program, I focused heavily on Grindr and misconceptions of the ideal body men must achieve to find love. How do you see digital communication platforms, like Grindr, influencing the role of silence in queer and disabled rhetorics?
- How can educators incorporate the concept of "silence" as a rhetorical strategy both in writing and through communication in curricula?
- In your book, you discuss anonymous online profiles. How do you think this affects "silence" and voices from marginalized identities, in digital spaces?
- When it comes to online writing spaces, people engage in silent discourse. With that being said, does this complicate our understanding of identity and rhetorical silence in digital spaces?
- How do you see your work present and future, intersecting with emerging within fields like digital humanities?