About

Nicole Ashanti McFarlane

I’m a doctoral candidate at Clemson University in the Rhetorics, Communication & Information Design program. I’m also the graduate assistant director of the Writing Center and look forward to our April 2012 expansion into The Class of 1956 Academic Success Building.

This blog is about my dissertation on the subject of cuteness and race and is named after the word circuitous to account for the sometimes ambiguous and seemingly roundabout process of researching and writing a doctoral paper. I like the alliterative aspect of the word too, as well as the way it references periphrastic demonstrations of rhetorical copia. I know. It’s a whole lot of fuss about one lil’ ol’ word. Cute.

This is a space where I will record some of my thoughts about cuteness and its workings in global market culture. I’m especially concerned with the spatial implications of cuteness and how we use this style of decorum in digital writing pedagogy and civic life.