“Rhetoric is the study of how we use language and how language uses us.”
Walker Smith
Assistant ProfessorWriting
Walker P. Smith (Ph.D., University of Louisville) is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition. His research examines histories of gender and sexuality in the U.S., the 19th and 20th century developments that shaped Christian prophetic writing into a geopolitical movement, and queer theory as a critical, active mode of engagement with public discourse. Dr. Smith’s courses invite students to consider what they want from writing, as we find our way through the various demands of academic and professional argumentation.
Publications
Smith, Walker P. "The Actively Enforced Policy: A Tactical Technical Model for Assessing and Intervening in Genre Uptake." In Tactical Approaches to Technical Communication, edited by Miles Kimball and Hilary St. Sarat-Peter. Forthcoming, expected Spring 2025.
Parker Routt, Veronica Pulley, Kolby Sanders, Lydia Peach, Cora Alward, Josh Vogeler, Jacob Morris, & Walker P. Smith. “Uses and limitations of AI chatbots: Implementing ChatGPT in the first-year writing classroom.” In Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions, edited by Beth Buyserie and Travis Thurston. Utah State University Press, Spring 2024.
Smith, Walker P. "Archival Research as Institutional Critique." Peitho, vol. 26, no. 1, Fall 2023 issue.
Smith, Walker P. "Teaching Through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism." Book Review. Community Literacy Journal, Spring 2023 issue, vol. 17, no. 2.
Gesa Kirsch, Romeo García, Caitlin Burns Allen, & Walker P. Smith, Editors. Unsettling Archival Research: Engaging Critical, Community, and Digital Archives. Southern Illinois University Press, Winter 2023.
Smith, Walker P. "The Rhetorical (Im)possibilities of Recovering George Barr: Toward a Decolonial Queer Archival Methodology." In Unsettling Archival Research: Engaging Critical, Communal, and Digital Archives. Southern Illinois University Press, Winter 2023.
Smith, Walker P., & Gesa Kirsch. "Introduction to Part I: Unsettling Archival Studies." Across the Disciplines. 2021.
Smith, Walker P. "Archive: Developing Critical Pedagogical Approaches." Freshman English Newsletter. 2021.
External Awards, Honors, Grants
Civic Pluralism Curriculum Development Grant, Interfaith America, 2025-26, with Dr. Maxwell Greenberg
Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing, The University of Louisville, 2022-2023