Article

“I Am Finding That I No Longer Believe in God”: Apistia and Rhetorics of Unbelief in Jon Steingard’s Instagram Deconversion”
Manuscript in preparation for submission to Journal of Communication and Religion.

Overview:
Forthcoming.

Book Chapter

“A 90’s Country Fan Like I Am”: Enthymemes and Public Memory in Contemporary Country Music”
Abstract in preparation for submission to a proposed edited collection on the intersection of popular culture and public memory.

Overview:
Cole Swindell’s song, “She Had Me at Heads Carolina,” was a hit on country radio in 2022. This track is illustrative of a prominent rhetoric in contemporary country music—nostalgia for the 1990s. Swindell, as well as Lauren Alaina (“Ladies in the 90s”), Walker Hayes (“90s Country”), and Thomas Rhett (“What’s Your Country Song”), have saturated the genre with a rhetoric that utilizes lyrics and sounds to remember the past through references to 51 songs, the majority of which were released in the 1990s. Prominent artists from the decade abound, including Rhett Akins (“That Ain’t My Truck,” 1995), Deana Carter (“Strawberry Wine,” 1996), The Chicks (“Cowboy Take Me Away,” 1999), Reba McEntire (“Fancy,” 1990), Jo Dee Messina (“Heads Carolina, Tails California,” 1996), George Strait (“Check Yes or No,” 1995), and Shania Twain (“Man! I Feel Like a Woman,” 1999). This chapter analyzes these songs’ construction of public memory through attention to two enthymematic rhetorics: (1) lyrical references to radio hits and (2) instrumentation, sampling, and other musical elements that harken back to the sounds of the 1990s. Swindell and his peers enthymematically invite their audiences to co-construct public memories of the genre’s past. These public memories critique the gender politics of today’s country radio and highlight the genre’s fluidity with other genres, including pop music. In sum, this sonic remembering rhetorically solidifies the 1990s as a foundational period in country music’s storied history.