Please join us for the David A Walsh Seminar for the Arts and Sciences on Friday, September 19 at 12pm in Science Center 166. Our very own Dr. Tiara K. Good will deliver her talk titled “Mapping as a Tool and Memorial: Rhetoric and the Opioid Epidemic.
“Speaker: Dr. Tiara K. Good
Title of talk: Mapping as a Tool and Memorial: Rhetoric and the Opioid Epidemic
Time/Place: Friday, Sept 19 at 12pm in Science Center 166
Abstract: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid epidemic was the biggest, most expensive public health crisis the United States faced. Combining findings from two of her books about the epidemic, in this talk, we will learn some broad information about the opioid epidemic which demanded new and technologically crafty use of maps. Maps are never neutral. Using close textual and rhetorical theories, two distinct usages of maps in the context of the epidemic are explored. HIDTA’s ODMAP utilizes visualization as a method of detection and response. Brightly color-coded circles on a grey colored map of the United States shine like beacons of both despair and hope that the governmental response can make change and start to reverse the savage trends of death the opioid epidemic has wrought. Visualization operates in the broader topography and visual synecdoche of the opioid epidemic that essentially medicalizes the issue. This tool for public health and law enforcement alike demands active participation on their parts to upload data that make it more effective. Using rhetorical theories of pain, witnessing, and public memory, Dr. Good argues pain is a powerful force for change in our society. The National Safety Council’s Celebrate Lost Loved Ones represents the pain of the opioid epidemic and those who survive their loved ones through witnessing. The map, similar to the ODMAP, relies on crowdsourcing and people impacted to contribute to raise awareness and gain agency. Witnessing, through identification with sufferers of pain, sites of public memory and popular media enable this work of rhetorically mobilizing pain for change.
Bio: Dr. Good is a rhetorician specializing in media and technology. Her areas of research include horror films/series, the opioid epidemic, war, public/cultural memory, and more. She has published a book Rhetoric of the Opioid Epidemic: Deaths of Despair, Rhetorical Pain: Collective, Healing, and Hope, chapters about popular films and public apologies, and articles about baseball and the opioid epidemic. She studied at Willamette University, Syracuse University, and The Pennsylvania State University.