My work studies the ways texts are designed, distributed, and dissected by audiences in both workplace and entertainment media. In both of these contexts, I’m interested in the ways digitality has simultaneously altered, improved, and broken our relationships with texts and our connections to other people.
My work views rhetoric as a foundational fantasy that both enables and creates our own identities and our connections with others. Therefore, the study of rhetoric must always look to the irrational, the unconscious, and the affective.
My work explores the stress points and anxious ruptures inherent to communicating in systems and networks of control and closure.
My work aims to make stuff and break stuff.
Mark D. Pepper is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Literature at Utah Valley University. He earned his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Purdue University with a double emphasis in public rhetoric and digital design. He earned his M.A. and B.A. from Sacramento State University with a focus on literature of the early twentieth century.
At UVU, he teaches courses in composition, technical writing, popular culture, and digital design. He’s also taught special topics courses in comic book superheroes and the rhetoric of humor. He currently serves as the English department Website Administrator and has held other, key academic appointments such as: Associate Writing Program Administrator, Computer Labs Supervisor, and Head of the Writing Studies Emphasis.
His scholarly work has appeared in journals like: The Journal of Popular Culture, Enculturation, Kairos, Present Tense, and others. He is currently working on a book entitled: A Counter-History of Popular Culture: Luhmann, Rhetoric, and Social Systems.