Sean Zdenek

Biography

Sean Zdenek is associate professor of technical and professional writing at the University of Delaware. His research interests include web accessibility, disability studies, sound studies, and rhetorical theory and criticism. Prior to joining the Department of English in 2017, Dr. Zdenek was a faculty member at Texas Tech University for fourteen years, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses on a range of subjects, including rhetorical criticism and theory, disability studies, web accessibility, sound studies, designing technical instructions, multimodal composition, technical communication theory, writing for publication, document design, professional report writing, and writing style. Dr. Zdenek's book, Reading Sounds: Closed-Captioned Media and Popular Culture (University of Chicago Press), received the 2017 best book award in technical or scientific communication from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (4Cs).

Selected Publications

2020. Transforming Access and Inclusion in Composition Studies and Technical Communication. College English 82(5), 536-44.

2018. Reimagining Disability and Accessibility in Technical and Professional Communication. Communication Design Quarterly 6(4), 4-11.

2018. Designing Captions: Disruptive Experiments with Typography, Color, Icons, and Effects. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy 23(1).

2015. Reading Sounds: Closed-Captioned Media and Popular Culture. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Supplemental website: http://ReadingSounds.net. Winner: 2017 Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication, Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). National Council of Teachers of English.

2011. Which Sounds Are Significant? Towards a Rhetoric of Closed Captioning. Disability Studies Quarterly 31(3).