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Dr. Steven B. Katz (1953-    ) is a contemporary American writer, poet, and scholar of language, rhetoric, poetics, and ethics in science writing, technical communication; medical writing, biotechnological communication; and the Hebrew alphabet. He received his PhD in Communication and Rhetoric at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 1988, under the supervision of S. Michael Halloran. At RPI, he was also a Teaching Assistant, and then a full-time Instructor.

He was hired for the position as Assistant Professor in the English Department at North Carolina State University in 1986, where he rose through the ranks to Full Professor. In 2005, he was recruited by and applied for the Pearce Professor of Professional Communication (an endowed professorship) and Professor of English at Clemson University—a position he was appointed to and assumed in 2006. In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Rutland Institute for Ethics at Clemson as well.

In these academic positions, Katz taught a variety of subjects that reflect the various but interrelated foci of his interests: undergraduate classes in Technical and Professional Writing, Business Writing, Scientific Writing; Rhetoric and Writing, Poetry Writing, Genres of Creative Writing, American Literature; Style Analysis, Literary Analysis, Technical Editing; co-taught a class in Scientific Journalism with Lesly Temesvari, Professor of Biology in the College of Life Sciences at Clemson; and graduate (masters and doctoral) classes in Environmental and Health Communication, the Rhetoric of Science and Technology, the History of Rhetoric; MS Project classes, RCID Studio II classes. He also chaired many undergraduate Independent Studies, masters theses and projects, and doctoral dissertations. He was the Director of the Professional Writing Certificate Program and then the Director of the MS in Technical Writing Program at NC State. He was the co-creator and primary presenter (with Professor Temesvari) of the Writing in the Disciplines (WID) Workshop at Clemson. He currently is the Associate Editor-Poetry of Survive and Thrive: Journal of Medical Humanities and Narrative of Medicine.

Although he still maintains a hectic schedule and works with students nationally and internationally, Katz retired from Clemson in August 2019 to pursue his writing full-time (Interview). Katz’s many but interrelated interests are reflected in his creative writing and scholarship as well as his teaching: “Steven B. Katz’s creative/scholarly interests range from ethics in technical communication to the nexus of rhetoric, poetry, and science. His research foci include rhetorical analyses of: ideologies of new technologies; conventions and ethics of styles in biotech and medical communication with the public; and the materialities and uses of language in different forms of writing, in religion, and in electronic media”

As of 2023, Katz published six+ books. The Epistemic Music of Rhetoric (Southern Illinois UP 1996) is often cited not only as a provocative in the history of classical rhetoric, but also as a foundational book in the contemporary study of sonic rhetoric. He has three substantially revised editions ( https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6145724 ), a final open access version of the 3rd edition) of Writing in the Sciences: Exploring Conventions of Scientific Discourse with Ann M. Penrose, and three versions of the Instructor’s Manual.  He also has published Nana!, a limited edition chapbook of poems. He has several books forthcoming as well, including Plato’s Nightmare (Parlor Press 2024). And he has published dozens of articles, one of which, “The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust,” received the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Award for Excellence in Scientific and Technical Communication in 1994. Finally, Katz has published hundreds of poems in various literary and nonliterary/professional magazines, and in digital journals, including three poems in the first peer reviewed electronic journal in the humanities ( https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern-culture ). Most recently, Katz he has been experimenting with poetry as psychagogic explorations in sonic rhetoric, and poetry as legitimate forms of argument in posthuman knowledge. Most of his non-book publications can be found at https://stevenbkatz.academia.edu/,&#x20;and/or&#x20;https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven-Katz.

Katz was also a member of Mishpacha (Hebrew for family), Jewish quartet in which he played classical, 12-string, and bass guitar. Mishpacha made two CDs, Insight and Visions, and Mishpacha Celebrates;, and appears on the compilation Dixie Diaspora ( https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mishpacha-mn0002313746 ). His group worked with celebrated composers such as Dan Nichols, and Bonia Shur; played for Governor Easley’s Inauguration Celebration, and the International Response to 9/11 at the PNC Arena; and was briefly conducted and accompanied by Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel at Meredith College, who told them he had had a difficult choice to make between literature and music (Interview). The group was featured regularly at many other occasions, large and small; was recorded in Meymandi Concert Hall as part of a Christmas television special; interviewed on Public Radio; and is still played every year (during the eight days of Chanukah) on Sirius XM Music Radio.