The Graduate School offices will be closed Monday, July 18, from 1 to 4 p.m. for a departmental retreat. The office will reopen Tuesday, July 19. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture candidate Ann Kitalong-Will will present their doctoral defense at 10 a.m. Tuesday (July 19) via Zoom.
Kitalong-Will's defense is titled "Rhetoric of Surrogacy Re-Considering Agency through Embodied Performance."
Please email kemelleni@mtu.edu if you would like a calendar invite to the presentation.
From the abstract:
Surrogacy as a medical practice goes back, in a practical sense, to 1988, when the court case, “In the Matter of Baby M, A Pseudonym for an Actual Person,” was tried in the Supreme Court of New Jersey. At the heart of the issue was the question of who Baby M’s legally recognized mother was in the relationship between the contracting parents and the woman who gestated and gave birth to Baby M. Using this case as a jumping-off point, this dissertation traces a history of surrogacy as a global industry as a way to explore rhetorical agency in the embodied performance of surrogates telling their own surrogacy stories. I take a cultural-rhetorical approach to understanding how the surrogacy industry persuades potential surrogates to enter into formal contracts to gestate a fetus for another person, and how their agency might be overtly influenced by the industry. Situating surrogacy within the realm of alternative birth stories, my analysis begins with a critique of digital advertising media, particularly in how the trope I call “insidious madonna-mother” is deployed in the textual and visual representations of pregnancy on surrogacy brokers’ websites. I then extend my analysis to argue that while the podcasts, as an important extension of surrogacy brokers’ digital marketing media, do provide surrogates an opportunity to reclaim rhetorical agency in a medical and legal system that exerts control over their embodied experience. However, the subtlety of the insidious madonna-mother trope permeates the discourse, limiting the potential for surrogates to truly reclaim and exercise agency within a rhetoric of surrogacy.
The Keweenaw Report quoted Ph.D. student Rose Daily (environmental engineering) in an article about Michigan Tech Sustainability Demonstration House’s (SDH) beekeeping initiatives. The SDH will be offering classes next week for those interested in learning more about beekeeping.
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Traverse Magazine mentioned Michigan Tech in an article about places to stay and things to do in the Copper Country. The article quoted alumna Lynn Makela ‘07 (B.S., scientific and technical communication, business administration) in a section featuring the rental cabins she owns with Jason Makela (ME-EM).
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Stephen Techtmann (BioSci) was mentioned in a Merck KGaA press release about the 2022 winner of the Future Insight Prize, which recognizes outstanding scientists who are making meaningful contributions to fields that are critical to the future of humanity. Techtmann was awarded the prize in 2021.
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ABC 10 mentioned Michigan Tech in a story announcing an upcoming community town hall on early childhood development and education. The event will be hosted by the Copper Country Great Start Collaborative (CCGSC) on Wednesday (July 20) in MTU’s Memorial Union Building Ballroom A.
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SIAM News mentioned a recent presentation given by Jiguang Sun (Math) at the 2022 SIAM Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh. The article details Sun’s discussion of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) used to perceive the presence of humans through walls.
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The Sentinel-Tribune mentioned a discussion to be given in Wood County, Ohio, by M.S. student Emma Shedd (forest ecology and management) about her studies on Midwestern oak trees and climate change.
Grand Opening: New Exhibit at Gay Museum
Join us this Saturday (July 16) from 1-3 p.m. at the Gay School Museum for the opening reception of a new permanent exhibit: "Copper Milling at Gay - A Lake Superior Story."
Led by Carol MacLennan and Mark Rhodes (SS), the exhibit draws on expertise from across the community of Gay and Michigan Tech's campus to explore the geography, geology, biology, economy, and social and environmental history of Gay. Many students and faculty have maintained an interest in research on the stamp sands at Gay, copper milling history, the company town and the impact of copper-rich tailings on the nearby Buffalo Reef and Traverse River Harbor. With the benefit of a Heritage Grant from Keweenaw National Historical Park, a permanent exhibit at the Gay School helps tell these stories.
Join many others involved with this project for the opening reception, or visit the museum this and subsequent summers. They are open every year on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons from mid-June through mid-October.
To have your event automatically appear, please submit them to the University Events Calendar.
Come HANG out on Walker Lawn with SLI staff! Enjoy a relaxing Friday afternoon lounging in a hammock, balancing on a slackline, or just sitting outside soaking in the summer...
