Current Projects

Teston, C. (forthcoming). Doing Dignity: Ethical Praxis and the Politics of Care. Johns Hopkins University Press.

The Human Dignity Project. A cross-disciplinary research laboratory dedicated to researching human dignity as both a concept and an actionable practice. Numerous IRB-approved, site-based studies of contemporary care work are underway, including:

  • Investigating the practice of human dignity during COVID-19.

(co-PI: Melissa Guadrón, English PhD student at Ohio State University; with Mahlet Meshesha, LCSW, MPH student at George Washington University; Ania Pathak, DO/PhD student at Michigan State University; Shariq Sherwani, MS, MBA, MACPR, MA, Health Communication PhD student at Ohio University; and Goran Stevanovski, MD, MA student in Biomedical Education and Neuroscience at Ohio State University). Generously sponsored by Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme, this study investigates how medical professionals’ experiences with providing dignified care have been altered by COVID-19. IRB #2020B0264

  • Human dignity and the posthuman patient. A site-based investigation of the ways medical professionals in Ohio State University’s Wheelchair Seating and Positioning Clinic enact dignified care practices. IRB #2016B0361
  • Situational analyses of death-with-dignity legislation. Rhetorical analyses of various versions of Death-with-Dignity Acts and concomitant practices within the U.S.

Professional Writing Pedagogies for Neurodiverse and/or Disabled Writers (co-PIs: Yanar Hashlamon, Sushil Oswal). We are investigating how business, professional, and/or technical writing classes attend to different students’ learning needs and writing practices. We are interested in hearing about your experiences with different kinds of classroom and learning activities this semester – specifically, what types of activities do you feel are important? Which do you find difficult? Interested in participating? Check out the survey here. IRB #2018B0473


Methods for Emerging Researchers in Rhetoric and Composition (with Erin Bahl and Chad Iwertz Duffy). Co-edited collection focused on describing and modeling contemporary research methods employed by emerging researchers.


Recent Publications (see CV for full list of publications)

  • Teston, C. (forthcoming). Medical/health communication. In Han Yu & Jonathan Buehl (Eds.), Keywords in Technical and Professional Communication. WAC Clearinghouse.
  • Hashlamon, Y. & Teston, C. (2021). Teaching participative justice in professional writing. Technical Communication Quarterly.
  • Johnson, G.P., Guadrón, M, Hambrick, K., Hashlamon, Y.,  Koneval, A., & Teston, C. (2021). Responding to the investigative pivots of rhetoric research. Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
  • Teston, C. (forthcoming). Medical/health communication. In Han Yu & Jonathan Buehl (Eds.), Keywords in Technical and Professional Communication. WAC Clearinghouse.
  • Teston, C., Gonzales, L., Bivens, K., & Whitney, K. (2019). “Surveying precarious publics.” Rhetoric of Health and Medicine.
  • Teston, C., Previte, B., Hashlamon, Y. (2019). “The Grind of Multimodal Work in Professional Writing Pedagogies.” Computers and Composition.
  • Teston, C. (2018). “Pathologizing Precarity.” In W.S. Hesford, A.C. Licona and C. Teston (Eds.), Precarious Rhetorics (276-297). Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.
  • Hesford, W.S., Licona, A.C., Teston, C. (2018). “Rhetorical Recalibrations and Response-abilities.” In W.S. Hesford, A.C. Licona and C. Teston (Eds.), Precarious Rhetorics (1-17). Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.
  • Teston, C. (2017). Bodies in Flux: Scientific Methods for Negotiating Medical Uncertainty. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  • Teston, C. (2017). “Enthymematic Elasticity in the Biomedical Backstage.” In L. Walsh and C. Boyle’s Persuasive Topologies: Equipment for a Post-Critical Rhetoric of Technoscience, Media, and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Teston, C. (2016). “Rhetoric, Precarity, and mHealth Technologies.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
  • Teston, C. (2016). “Rendering and Reifying Brain Sex Science.” In S. Barnett & C. Boyle (Eds.) Rhetoric, Through Everyday Things. University of Alabama Press.