Kristin Arola
288 Bessey Hall
434 Farm Ln
East Lansing, MI 48824
scholar.google.com/citations
arola-kristin/
FacultyWriting, Rhetoric, and CulturesAmerican Indian and Indigenous StudiesRhetoric and WritingFirst Year WritingProfessional and Public Writing
Gillmor Endowed Professor in Professional and Public Writing
Director, American Indian and Indigenous Studies
Biography
In addition to the Karen L. Gillmor, Ph.D Endowed Professorship in Professional Writing, Kristin Arola is a Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures as well as Chair of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at MSU.
Arola’s research and teaching focuses on composing as culturing. Specifically, she explores the act of writing/designing/making and the relations that bring forth these texts. By looking to the relations between land, histories, and cultures, she considers how the words, designs, and images we compose evoke the past while opening up possible futures. To do this work, she brings together composition theory, making culture, digital rhetoric, and cultural rhetoric.
Research Areas
Cultural Rhetorics, American Indian Studies, Environmental Rhetoric
Education
PhD., Michigan Technological University, 2006
B.A., University of Michigan, 1998
Research and Academic Affiliation
Affiliate Faculty, American Indian & Indigenous Studies Program
Affiliate Faculty, Digital Humanities Program
Projects
Gonzalez, Guadalupe and Kristin L. Arola “Water Walks, Indigenous Feminism, and the Persuasive Power of Anishinabekweg.” In The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminist Rhetoric. Edited by Suban Nur Cooley and Jacqueline Rhodes. Routledge, 2025.
Arola, Kristin L. and Victor Villanueva. CrossTalk in Comp Theory. 4th Edition. National Council of Teachers of English, 2024.
Collins, Jason, Kristin Arola and Marika Seigel. “Land-People Ecologies.” In Rhetorical Ecologies. Edited by Sid Dobrin and Madison Jones. NCTE/CCCC Press, 2024
Schelly, Chelsea, Val Gagnon, Kathleen Brosemer and Kristin Arola. “Engagement for Life’s Sake: Reflections on Partnering and Partnership with Rural Tribal Nations.” Rural Sociology, Jan. 2024.
Arola, Kristin and Thomas Rickert. “Rhetorical New Materialism: Conversations toward a Future New Materialism across Boundaries.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 2, Mar. 2022, pp. 190-198.
Ball, Cheryl E., Jennifer Sheppard, and Kristin L. Arola. Writer/Designer: Making Multimodal Projects, 3rd Edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2021.
Sackey, Donnie Johnson, Casey Boyle, Mai Nou Xiong, Gabriela Raquel Ríos, Kristin L. Arola, Scot Barnett. “Perspectives on Cultural and Posthumanist Rhetorics.” Rhetoric Review, 38.4, 375-401. (2019).
Schelly, Chelsea, Valoree Gagnon, Kristin L. Arola, et al. “Cultural Imaginaries or Incommensurable Ontologies? Relationality and Sovereignty as Worldviews in Socio-Technological System Transitions. Energy Research&Social Science, vol. 80, 2021, pp. 1-7.
Arola, Kristin L. “A Land-Based Digital Design Rhetoric.” Routledge Companion to Digital Writing & Rhetoric. Eds. Jonathan Alexander & Jacqueline Rhodes. New York: Routledge. 2018.
Arola, Kristin L. “Composing as Culturing: An American Indian Approach to Digital Ethics.” Handbook of Digital Writing and Literacies Research. Eds. Kathy Mills, Amy Stornaiuolo, Anna Smith & Jessica Zacher Pandya. New York: Routledge. 2018.
Arola, Kristin L. “Indigenous Interfaces.” Social Writing/Social Media: Pedagogy, Presentation, and Publics. Eds. Douglas Walls and Stephanie Vie. WAC Clearinghouse Perspectives on Writing Series, University of Colorado Press. 2017.
Arola, Kristin L. and Adam C. Arola “An Ethics of Assemblage: Creative Repetition and the Electric Pow Wow.” Assembling Composition. Eds. Kathleen Blake Yancey and Stephen J. McElroy. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. 2017.
Winner of the 2017 Computers and Composition Ellen Nold Best Essay or Article Award, awarded Spring 2018
Johnson, Lucy and Kristin L. Arola. “Tracing the Turn: The Rise of Multimodal Composition in the U.S.” Res Rhetorica. No.1 (2016).
Arola, Kristin L. “It’s My Revolution: Learning to See the Mixedblood.” Composing (Media) = Composing (Embodiment). Eds. Kristin L. Arola and Anne Frances Wysocki. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2012. 115-142.
Arola, Kristin L. and Anne Frances Wysocki, Eds. Composing (Media) = Composing (Embodiment). Utah State University Press, 2012.
Courses
WRA 260 (Rhetoric, Persuasion & Culture)
WRA 325 (Writing & Multimodality)
WRA 860 Multimodal Composing
University News
