Carol Reeves, Rebecca Clifton Reade Professor of English, came to Butler from Texas in 1989 after receiving her Ph.D. from Texas Christian University.

Professor Reeves investigates how language and rhetoric shape our knowledge and understanding of our world, ourselves, and others. In particular, she examines how language both enables and limits the growth of knowledge and consensus surrounding scientific claims, both inside science and in the public. Her publications on the AIDS epidemic, MadCow Disease or Prion Disease, agricultural chemicals, addiction, and climate change all demonstrate the tenuous relation between “reality” and the language we use to represent that reality. Bias, context, and limited data inevitably lead to imperfect definitions, descriptions, labels, and visual representations that can easily come to“stand in” for an unexplored or unknown totality. She also explores the struggles scientists face when they attempt to describe and establish new phenomena, engage in cross-disciplinary debates over the nature of a phenomenon, when they are entrenched in high stakes disagreements over threats to the environment and human health, when they need to communicate risk to the general public, and when they want to change perceptions of stigmatized conditions.

Professor Reeves’s courses combine Literary study with other fields, such as Medicine, Social Science, and History. Topics include Doctor Writers and Addiction. She also teaches courses in Medical Humanities and Rhetoric.

Professor Reeves has also made contributions to several organizations in Indianapolis and Indiana that have provided opportunities for her students. Working with CAFO Watch,Indiana to increase regulatory oversight for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Reeves has brought many students into the organization as interns who learn about the legislative process and environmental policymaking. She and students worked with the Riley Hospital Ryan White Pediatric Infectious Disease department to plan a campaign to create awareness of pre- and peri-natal HIV transmission and the importanceof testing. She and her students also work with Women for Change Indianapolis and Planned Parenthood to help build opportunities for women to access educational opportunities and healthcare and to combat discrimination.

Carol Reeves

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