Rachel McCabe, Ph.D.

I study Rhetoric and Composition, with specializations in reading studies, visual rhetoric, and affect theory. My scholarship focuses on how our affective responses to texts, especially our empathy for people and characters, shape our reading and viewing experiences. My publications can be found in journals including Composition Studies, Pedagogy, Compass, and Studies in Documentary Film. Articles and presentations have applied rhetorical analysis to a range of texts such as “Get Ready with Me” YouTube videos, Emerald Fennell’s revenge film Promising Young Woman, and Jerrod Carmichael’s comedy specials.

My courses use rhetorical theory to help students see everyday texts as important sites of inquiry, a process which creates more thoughtful and deliberate readers and writers. As Director of the Writing Program, I’m excited to help students learn more about how to work with and challenge writing conventions across a variety of genres including traditional academic essays, multimodal presentations, and professional documents. I also teach seminars at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

Recent Publications

The Empathy Paradox: Rhetoric, Media, and the Trouble with Identification

Areas of Expertise

• Composition
• Rhetoric
• Affect Theory
• Film

Education

• Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington

Teaching

• ENG 110: College Writing I
• ENG 210: College Writing II
• ENG 303: Writing for Business
• ENG 318: Advanced Composition and the Writing Process
• ENG 370: Writing with AI
• FYS 130: Rhetorics of American Subcultures
• FYS 130: Philadelphia on Film

Select Publications

Composition & Rhetoric in Contentious Times, coedited with J. Juszkiewicz, Utah State University Press, November 2023.

“Practices for Addressing Affective Difficulty in the Writing Classroom,” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, vol. 22, no. 3, Fall 2022.

“Cinematic Reproduction as Multimodal Composition in First-Year Composition,” Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, vol. 14, no. 1, Spring 2021.

 “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and Affective Responses to the True Crime Documentary,” Studies in Documentary Film, vol. 16, no. 1, Spring 2021.

Select Presentations

“Weaponized Makeovers and the Female ‘Look’ in Promising Young Woman,” Female Filmmakers and Feminism in the Media Conference, October 2026, Toulouse, FR.

“‘This is Me’: The Search for Identity in Online Quizzes and Memes,” Rhetoric Society of America Conference, May 2024, Denver, CO.

“Composition & Rhetoric in Contentious Times: Cautious Optimism Through Collective Reflection,” Conference on College Composition and Communication, February 2023, Chicago, IL.

“VIP Entry Only: The Unsustainable Price of Sustainable Fashion,” Rhetoric Society of America Conference, May 2022, Baltimore, MD.