Deborah Harris

Associate Director and Continuing Lecturer

Office Location

Girvetz 1310

Specialization

Deborah Harris is Associate Director and Continuing Lecturer in the Writing Program, and teaches a wide variety of classes (lower-division, upper-division, and graduate levels) ranging from science writing to writing in the humanities. Her book, Media and the Rhetoric of Body Perfection: Cosmetic Surgery, Weight Loss, and Beauty in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2014) explores the transformation imperatives advertised by the media, especially in the West. Her research interests include medical rhetoric, body rhetoric, popular culture, and composition.  

Bio

Before joining the UCSB Writing Program in 2011, Deborah Harris taught lower- and upper-division writing classes at the University of Arizona, where she earned her PhD, and at Loyola Marymount University as a Visiting Assistant Professor. 

Publications

Book

Media and the Rhetoric of Body Perfection: Cosmetic Surgery, Weight Loss and Beauty in Popular Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing, Jan 2014. Print.

Peer Reviewed Journal

“Viruses Don’t Discriminate, But People Do: Teaching Writing for Health Professionals in the Context of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter.” Rhetoric of Health & Medicine Journal. March 2021. [Accepted]

“First, Do No Harm: Teaching Writing in the Wake of Traumatic Events.” Composition Forum. Co-Authored with Sarah Debacher, University of New Orleans. 2016.

“From Body Composition to Body Revision: The Student Body in Composition Classrooms.” Rocky Mountain Review 65.2 (Fall 2011): 168-187.  Print.

Chapter in Scholarly Book

Instructors as Surveyors, Students as Criminals: Turn It In and the Culture of Suspicion.” Critical Conversations about Plagiarism. Eds. Anne Meade Stockdell-Giesler, Michael Donnelly, Rebecca Ingalls, Tracy Morse, Joanna Castner. Andersen, SC: Parlor Press, 2013.

Reviews

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today edited by Eva Respini.” MAKE Literary Magazine. March 2021. Web

Innocent Experiments: Childhood and the Culture of Popular Science in the United States by Rebecca Onion.” MAKE Literary Magazine. September 2019. Web

Review of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Souciant Magazine. August 2019. Web.

Exhaustion: A History by Anna Katharina Schaffner.” MAKE Literary Magazine. March 2019. Print.

"Love Through a Net." A Review of the Film The Lobster. Souciant Magazine. July 2016. Web. 

“Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era by Beatriz Preciado.” MAKE Literary Magazine. September 2014. Web.

Beyond Words: Illness and the Limits of Expression: An Examination of Illness Narratives by Kathlyn Conway.” MAKE Literary Magazine. Issue 15: Misfits. August 2014. Print.