We are often told to “live in the present.” However, Allyson Gross (Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellow, 2024–2025) often finds herself thinking about the future—not just her own, but that of the world.
A PhD Candidate in the Rhetoric, Politics, and Culture program of the Department of Communication Arts, Allyson researches how, and to what end, individuals, collectives, and institutions imagine the future. Her dissertation, entitled Of Even Vaster Promise: Material Preservation and the Rhetoric of the Future, provides a rhetorical analysis (i.e. a critical consideration of the means by which, and to what ends, something persuades and is made persuasive) of three cases of material preservation. Chapter 1 is a study of the Westinghouse time capsules, and the rationale behind the physical objects that their curators chose to represent their era. Upending the notion of the “material,” chapter 2 focuses on cryonics as an exploration of how contemporary, techno-scientific ideologies might circulate in the present and be transmitted into the future. The third and final chapter centers on nuclear guardianship—a proposal for the above-ground, perpetual storage and maintenance of nuclear waste—as a means of investigating how specific methods of material preservation might be made persuasive.
Naturally, there are all sorts of frameworks through which one could analyze the case studies that Allyson has chosen. What, one might wonder, do we gain from a specifically rhetorical analysis? “To preserve artifacts for the future […] may generally presume the existence of a future writ large,” Allyson commented. “But a rhetorical analysis of the decisions made by participants in these projects about what gets preserved, for example, can tell us a lot about what type of future for which they were envisioned, or to what end their curators imagined their own persuasive reach across time.” Indeed, such an analysis is made all the more fascinating—albeit perplexing—once we take into consideration the constraints that the materiality of these cases impose. In what ways might the preservation of material artifacts, in particular, hinder a society’s ability to transmit its ideologies to future generations, and be understood by them? In what ways might materiality prove especially helpful in this task? These are some of the questions that Allyson is grappling with.
As the first recipient of the Dana-Allen Fellowship from the Department of Communication Arts in many years, Allyson was eager to converse and mingle with scholars outside of her discipline. “Being in community with scholars across the humanities provided me with a more expansive way of thinking about my subjects and research questions beyond their roots in rhetorical scholarship,” Allyson said in reflection. “This year’s group of fellows was also so welcoming and supportive. That support made what could have been a daunting experience that much easier.”
Allyson is anticipating the future in more ways than one. In addition to turning her dissertation into a monograph—she plans to work on a proposal in the fall—she is also looking forward to pursuing a separate research project on the material and rhetorical development of the Washington Monument, a project that emerged from a research assistantship that Allyson held with Allison Prasch (Resident Fellow, 2024–2025). While dissertation writing occupies most of her current research time, Allyson was able to visit both the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress and the National Archives this past April in pursuit of this project.
This fall, Allyson will enter the academic job market. Though ever-daunting, she remains open-minded: having grown up in Houston, moved to Maine to attend a small liberal arts college, and then to a large state school in the midwest for her graduate studies, Allyson is well-prepared for whatever position she lands. “I know that all jobs require a balance between research and teaching, so I feel lucky to be both intensely motivated by my research and energized by experiences in the classroom,” she noted. “Wherever I end up, I’m excited to keep pursuing these projects and look forward to adapting my dissertation into a full manuscript.”