Jacob A. Bennett, M.F.A.

“Every word is a choice” is my motto, and it applies equally to the “academic” subjects of my courses – rhetoric, literary analysis, creative writing – as it does to the “pedestrian” writing forms of bumper stickers, graffiti, tweets and text messages. There are countless ways to construct phrases, sentences, paragraphs, essays, and just as many ways to write a political slogan or line of poetry; consequently, I tend to focus less on prescriptive and proscriptive forms and formulae, and instead urge students to recognize the importance of deliberation and to deliberate on this (most important?) question: “Why did the author choose to say it that way?”

Outside the classroom, my preoccupations include American politics and socio-political movements (this includes analysis of speeches and statements and legislation, but also yelling at the radio or television), as well as writing poetry and translating it from German and Czech into English.