Dr. Chevrette is a critical rhetorical scholar committed to examining relationships among communication, identity, and social justice. Her research employs queer, feminist, and postcolonial frameworks to engage questions of difference, representation, embodiment, and whiteness. Her most recent article, “The FEMEN body can do everything: Generating the agentic bodies of social movement through internal and external rhetorics,” draws from fieldwork with the transnational feminist organization FEMEN, utilizing participatory critical rhetoric examine how FEMEN’s training and protest activities construct agency at the level of individual, collective, and entangled activist bodies, extending the communicative study of social movements by attending to corporeal molding behind the scenes.

Chevrette has taught a range of courses in rhetoric and communication theory, intercultural communication, critical-cultural studies, and gender studies. By connecting theory with lived experience, her teaching guides students to become aware of, and critically examine, the ways language, symbols, and ideologies shape cultural and communicative structures and practices.

Chevrette lives in Nashville, TN, where she enjoys playing and listening to live music, rock climbing, and going on adventures with her dog, River, and her fiancé Jordan.

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Hundley, H., Chevrette, R., & Jones, H. A. (2020). Dangerous dames: Representing female empowerment in postfeminist media. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Chevrette, R., & Duerringer, C. (forthcoming August 2020). Bros before Donald Trump: Masculinity, bromance, and memetic citizenship in the #BROTUS memes. In J. Rosenbaum-Andre & G. Bouvier (Eds.), #TalkingPoints: Twitter, the public sphere, and the nature of online deliberation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.  

Chevrette, R., & Hendricks, J (forthcoming July 2020). Love as a strategy for community and social justice organizing: Invitational rhetoric in “Murfreesboro Loves.” In S. Foss & C. Griffin (Eds.), Inviting understanding. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.  

Chevrette, R. (2020). Blinded by acceptance: Straight fragility, shame, and the dangers of post-queer politics. In R. Chevrette & S. Eguchi (Eds.), Special Forum: “We don’t see LGBTQ differences”: Cisheteronormativity and concealing phobias and irrational fears behind rhetorics of acceptance. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking.  

Chevrette, R., & Hess, A. (2019). “The FEMEN body can do everything”: Generating the agentic bodies of social movement through internal and external rhetorics. Communication Monographs, 86(4), 416-437. doi: 10.1080/03637751.2019.159078 * student who I mentored when material was developed.

Chevrette, R. (2019). [Review of the book No place like home: Lessons in activism from LGBT Kansas, by C. J. Janovy]. Communication Booknotes Quarterly, 50(4), 172-174. doi: 10.1080/10948007.2019.1691425

Framer, M., & Chevrette, R. (2017). Critical theory and qualitative research. In J. P. Matthes, C. S. Davis, & R. F. Potter (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of communication research methods. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.

Clark, L., & Chevrette, R. (2017). Thick description. In J. P. Matthes, C. S. Davis, & R. F. Potter (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of communication research methods. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.

Chevrette, R. (2016). Rhetoric as Holographic: De/colonizing public memory at Pueblo Grande. In S. L. McKinnon, R. Asen, K. R. Chávez, R. G. Howard (Eds.), Text + Field: Innovations in Rhetorical Method. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.

Chevrette, R., & Hess, A. (2015). Unearthing the Native past: Citizen archaeology and modern (non)belonging at the Pueblo Grande Museum. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 12(2), 139-158. doi: 10.1080/14791420.2015.1012214

Leong, K., Chevrette, R., Koblitz, A. H., Kuo, K., & Switzer, H. (Eds.) (2015). Special issue: Transnational Feminisms. Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, 36(3), 1-199.

Chevrette, R. (2013). Outing heteronormativity in interpersonal and family communication: Feminist applications of queer theory beyond the sexy streets. Communication Theory, 23(2), 170-190. doi:10.1111/comt.12009

Chevrette, R., & Braverman, L. C. (2013). Brothers, fathers, terrorists: Masculine assemblages in Glenn Beck’s rhetoric of U.S./Israel unity post 9/11. Feminist Formations, 25(2), 81-106. doi:10.1353/ff.2013.0018

De la Garza, S. A., & Chevrette, R. (2013). Journaling exercise on the guiding ideals of the four seasons of ethnography. In J. A. Scarduzio, E. K. Eger, & S. J. Tracy (Eds.), Teaching manual materials for S. J. Tracy, Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, and communicating impact. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.

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Outstanding Undergraduate Mentor Award, Tennessee Communication Association, 2019.  

Ayne Cantrell Service Award, Women’s and Gender Studies, MTSU, 2018-2019.  

Top Four Paper Award, Media Studies Interest Group of the Western States Communication Association, 2018 (First Author).

Emerging Scholar Award, Critical and Cultural Studies Division of the National Communication Association, 2015.  

Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Graduate Student Scholarship, ASU, 2013-2014.  

To Think, To Write, To Publish Fellowship, 2012-2014.  

Graduate Excellence Award, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University, 2014.  

Superior Researcher Award, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University, 2014.  

Outstanding Researcher Award, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University, 2013.  

Top Paper, Intercultural Communication Interest Group of the Western States Communication Association, 2013 (Solo Author).  

National Communication Association Doctoral Honors Seminar Participant, competitively selected and funded, 2013.  

Lattie and Elva Coor Fellowship for Building Great Communities, ASU, 2012-2013.  

Dean’s Award for the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies, California State University, Sacramento, 2009.  

Department of Anthropology Academic Achievement Award, California State University, Sacramento, 2009.

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Dr. Chevrette is co-author of the book Dangerous Dames: Representing Female Empowerment in Postfeminist Media (with Heather Hundley and Hillary A. Jones).The book illuminates the rhetorical work performed by contemporary representations of a specific type of postfeminist hero who has garnered a lot of cultural capital: women who are smart, capable, physically agile and fit, and proficient with weaponry and technology. Using rhetorical criticism and critical theory, the book examines a range of contemporary texts, including Kill Bill, Volumes I and II; The Hunger Games; Wonder Woman; Atomic Blonde; Proud Mary; The Bionic Woman; Deus Ex; Dark Matter; and Caprica. The book contributes to a robust existing conversation about postfeminist media, tracing how representation has changed in recent years and engaging with new bodies of theory. 

Dr. Chevrette also recently co-edited a special forum with Dr. Shinsuke Eguchi from University of New Mexico, titled “‘We Don’t See LGBTQ Differences’: Cisheteronormativity and Concealing Phobias and Irrational Fears Behind Rhetorics of Acceptance.” Together, contributing authors interrogate how, much like the logics of colorblindness and post-racialism elide and uphold racist structures and practices via claims of “not seeing race,” claims to “not see LGBTQ differences” uphold cisheteronormativity.  Examining lived experiences of queer exclusion that stand in stark contrast to the neoliberal rhetoric of diversity and inclusion, the articles in this forum make visible the phobias and irrational fears concealed within ostensibly progressive languages that mask structural oppression behind the professed equal acceptance of all genders and sexes.

Chevrette's rhetorical and ethnographic scholarship has been published in various journals, including Communication Monographs, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication Theory, Feminist Formations, and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. She also has a chapter in the award-winning edited volume on rhetorical field methods, Text + Field: Innovations in Rhetorical Method, published by Penn State University Press.

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• Quoted in Step Up Magazine article, “First Gender Neutral Clothing Store Opens in Atlanta,” June 2019. https://www.stepupmagazine.com/single-post/2019/06/10/First-Gender-Neutral-Children%E2%80%99s-Clothing-Store-Opens-in-Atlanta
• Quoted in CNN article, “Analysis: Don’t Use the Royal Birth to Trot out a Dangerous Myth,” May 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/06/us/prince-harry-meghan-royal-baby-mixed-race-hope/index.html (CNN US article picked up by CNN International, Microsoft News, KIMT 3 News, and ATT.net).
• Guest on WMOT 89.5 Roots Radio, MTSU On the Record: “Gendered Migrations,” March 2019. https://mtsunews.com/chevrette-gender-conference-march2019/
• Guest on Noise to Knowledge Podcast, Episode 3: “Boobs & Protest,” February 2017. http://noisetoknowledgepodcast.com/2017/02/24/episode-3-boobs-protest/

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