Jeff recently published his first book, Banning Queer Blood: Rhetorics of Citizenship, Contagion, and Resistance (University of Alabama Press). This analysis, which places contemporary rhetorical theory in conversation with identity and movement studies, focuses on the federal donor deferral policies that prohibit gay men from giving blood. Although organizations such as the FDA purport to secure public safety through a scrupulous deliberative process, Jeff argues these measures are substantiated by a deleterious scientific discourse that positions gay men as contagions. As a remedy, queer men have responded by quietly donating blood and verbally protesting in the ritual site. These practices underscore the constitutive, vernacular, and discursive modalities of citizenship, illustrating that civic identity rests not in the prescribed normativities of institutions, but the quotidian lives of social actors. In addition to the book, Jeff's work has also appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Text and Performance Quarterly, the Journal of Homosexuality and the Southern Communication Journal. Jeff's current research project, tentatively titled Critical Conditions: Diabetes and the Management of the Human Body, is a continuation of his work completed on the relationship between blood symbolism, public policy, and the cultural construction of citizenship. Critical Conditions investigates the trope of "management" employed by institutions to regulate and discipline the bodies of people with diabetes. The National Communication Association recently named Jeff the recipient of the Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award.
Articles
Queer Teenagers and the Mediation of Utopian Catastrophe, Critical Studies in Media Communication (2010)
Recent cover stories about queer teenagers mark a noticeable shift in the discourse surrounding lesbian,...
Romancing the Difference: Kenneth Burke, Bob Jones University, and the Rhetoric of Religious Fundamentalism, Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2009)
The article reviews the book "Romancing the Difference: Kenneth Burke, Bob Jones University, and the...
United We Stand, Divided We Fall”: AIDS, Armorettes, and the Tactical Repertoires of Drag (with Isaac West), Southern Communication Journal (2009)
This essay focuses on the Armorettes, an Atlanta-based drag troupe that has played a critical...
Media/Queered: Visibility and Its Discontents, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly (2008)
The interludes include reflections by Pulitzer Prize-winner Studs Turkel, Tracy Baim of the Windy City...
Books
Contributions to Books
A Stitch in Time: Public Emotionality and the Repertoire of Citizenship, Remembering the AIDS Quilt, (2011)
A Queer Anxiety: Assimilation Politics and Cinematic Hedonics in Relax . . . It’s, LGBT Studies and Queer Theory: New Conflicts, Collaborations, and Contested Terrain, (2007)
Presentations
Finding Voice in the Queer Book: Spotlight on GLBTQ Communication, GLBTQ Studies Division of NCA (2011)
Voices from the Intersections of Rhetoric and Performance, Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division of NCA (2011)
A Method to the Madness: Rhetoric, Public Policy, and the Study of Everyday Life, Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division of the National Communication Association (NCA) Division, (2010)
Diabetes on Trial: Sonia Sotomayor and the Rhetoric of Recuperation, Latina/o Studies Division of NCA (2010)