Don Unger, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Writing & Rhetoric
Don Unger’s research addresses the relationships among embodied experience, technological innovation, and grassroots activism. Currently, he is working with the Marks Project, located in Quitman County, on a community-centered digital literacy program. Additionally, he is conducting historical research about the Poor People’s Corporation, a network of Black worker-owned and -operated cooperatives in Mississippi from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s. He serves as the Co-Managing Editor of Spark: A Journal of Activism in Writing, Rhetoric & Literacy Studies and as the Social-Media Editor for Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society. His scholarship has appeared in Computers & Composition, Constellations: A Cultural Rhetorics Publishing Space, and Teacher-Scholar-Activist, as well as in the edited collection Thinking Globally, Composing Locally: Rethinking Online Writing in the Age of the Global Internet. He teaches courses in community writing, writing for digital media, and feminist pedagogy.
Gender Studies -Related Research Interests:embodiment, feminist and womanist pedagogies, activism, community engagement
Fellowship-Related Published Research:
"Grassroots Activism and Tactical Communities: Examining the Poor People’s Corporation in
Mississippi in the 1960s and 1970s." Tactical Approaches to Technical Communication: Reimagining Institutions, Transforming Society, edited by Miles Kimball, Hilary Sarat-St. Peter, and Hayley McCullough, State University of New York Press, 2025, pp. 77-92.
"From Civil Rights to Black Power: Community Uplift, Commonplaces, and Writing Instruction in Mississippi." Conference on College Composition & Communication, Spokane, WA: Apr. 2021. (online)
"Accountability in Mississippi’s Black Worker-Owned and -Operated Cooperatives as a Model for Technical & Professional Communication." Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, Pittsburgh, PA: Mar. 2019.
"The Poor People’s Corporation and Black Women’s Leadership in Contemporary Activism." Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Conference, Oxford, MS: Mar. 2019.
