“Ceraso has offered rhetoric, sound studies, and those interested in multimodal pedagogy a project that will resonate for a very long time”
—CASEY BOYLE, author of Rhetoric as a Posthuman Practice
SOUNDING COMPOSITION
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018
Sounding Composition reimagines listening education to account for twenty-first-century sonic practices and experiences. Sonic technologies such as audio editing platforms and music software allow students to control sound in ways that were not always possible for the average listener. While digital technologies have presented new opportunities for teaching listening in relation to composing, they also have resulted in a limited understanding of how sound works in the world at large. I offer an expansive approach to sonic pedagogy through the concept of multimodal listening—a practice that involves developing an awareness of how sound shapes and is shaped by different contexts, material objects, and bodily, multisensory experiences. Through a mix of case studies and pedagogical materials, I demonstrate how multimodal listening enables students to become more savvy consumers and producers of sound in relation to composing digital media, and in their everyday lives.
REVIEWS
“A Review of Sounding Composition: Multimodal Pedagogies for Embodied Listening by Steph Ceraso.” Reviewed by Shannon Kelly. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. Volume 26, Number 1 (Fall 2021).
“The Rhetoric of Sound Rhetoric.” Reviewed by Justin Eckstein. Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Volume 51, Number 3 (July 2021).
“Circulating Ethical Digital Writing.” Reviewed by James P. Purdy. College English, Volume 83, Number 4 (March 2021).
“Layering Additional Tracks: A Review of Steph Ceraso’s Sounding Composition: Multimodal Pedagogy for Embodied Listening.” Reviewed by Kati Fargo Ahern. Enculturation. March 9, 2020.
“A Review of Sounding Composition: Multimodal Pedagogies for Embodied Listening, Steph Ceraso, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2018), 193 pp.” Reviewed by Jason Tham. Computers and Composition, Volume 54 (December 2019).
“SO! Reads: Steph Ceraso’s Sounding Composition: Multimodal Pedagogy for Embodied Listening.” Reviewed by Airek Beauchamp. Sounding Out! May 20, 2019.
sound never tasted so good
Intermezzo ebook, 2019
Sound Never Tasted So Good: “Teaching” Sensory Rhetorics focuses on a “multisensory dining event” in which my students worked with a chef to create original sonic compositions that complimented and enhanced the visual design, smell, texture, and taste of a prepared meal. The event introduced students to new ideas about the rhetorical possibilities of sound and raised questions about when and why sensory rhetorics fail. Multisensory projects like this one can attune us to the ambient rhetoric that influences moods and behaviors in a range of everyday settings. Drawing from a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary scholarship and media, Sound Never Tasted So Good offers a sensuous approach to digital writing and rhetoric pedagogy and advances discourse on the role of the senses in educational experiences.
Reviews
“Review: Sound Never Tasted So Good.” Reviewed by KC Hysmith. Reviews in Digital Humanities. Volume 2.8 (August 2021).
“it is a highly welcome contribution to the ‘sensorial revolution’ that is sweeping the humanities and will set a new benchmark”
—DAVID HOWES, author of The Sensory Studies Manifesto
SENSORY RHETORICS
Penn State University Press, 2026
As our divided political climate attests, rational deliberation has failed to persuade people to rally around issues of public health, race and gender-based violence, climate threats, and political demagoguery. In response, scholars are increasingly turning to sensation for new frameworks to understand our situated, bodily responses to rapidly changing environments. Sensory Rhetorics puts rhetoric into conversation with sensory studies writ large.
This volume illuminates and interrogates how rhetoric “makes sense,” focusing on the ways sensation acts as a suasive force in everyday life. Essays in the volume offer an array of (multi)sensory methods and experiences to demonstrate how sensory rhetorics open new avenues for thinking about our world. The volume begins with the role of disgust in our partisan politics and the digital economy, introduces key concepts of sensory rhetoric, and models innovative methods in relation to environmental injustice, anti-racist work, and gender-affirming surgery. The final essays leave readers with provocative questions regarding sensory regimes and exclusion, received notions of meaning, and the deeply anti-sensory attitudes of coloniality to reimagine the future work of sensory rhetoric. Together, the authors argue that this era of unprecedented change requires new kinds of bodily knowledge and sensory methods to help us understand the most pressing issues in contemporary life.
In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Kerry Banazek, Natalie Bennie, Kyle S. Bond, Justin Eckstein, Margot Finn, Benjamin Firgens, Romeo García, David M. Grant, Ames Hawkins, Bryan W. Moe, Christa J. Olson, Lisa L. Phillips, Kellie Sharp-Hoskins, and Kelly Williams Nagel.