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This paper offers a rhetorical analysis to read the San Francisco “Comfort Women” Column of Strength memorial within the context of the United States’ historical violence against Asian women with white sexual imperialism as a theoretical lens. Utilizing in situ rhetorical field methods and critical rhetorical criticism, I contend that the San Francisco “Comfort Women” Column of Strength memorial illuminates how the medium of a public memorial faces certain constraints and difficulties in being able to name and critique U.S. imperialism as a historical narrative to be publicly remembered in dominant national memory. I offer transnational global memoryscape, extending Phillips and Reyes’ global memoryscape, as a concept that necessarily draws our attention specifically towards unequal forces of power across borders, such as Western imperialist forces in Asia. Ultimately, a critical, transnational lens on public memory is imperative to situate national public memories within a global context as memories flow across borders.

In "Why Diplomacy Demands More Than Intelligence," Lamia Zia and Andrew Rolander grapple with important issues relating to diplomacy. Situating their arguments in historical context, the researchers describe how diplomacy and intelligence share a symbiotic relationship, where one informs the other and neither can operate alone. Zia and Rolander ultimately argue that, "Diplomacy’s true power lies not just in what you know, but in how you use it to connect, persuade, and lead." 

New book, Diversifying the Space of Podcasting: Access, Identity, and Reflective Practices, written by Alexis Romero Walker and COMM Lecturer Tegan Bratcher was published by Rowman & Littlefield. 

The publisher states, "As the podcast studies field continues to gain momentum both within academia and in practice, scholars have been mapping and exploring the podcasting landscape from a variety of perspectives. This edited volume highlights the diverse spaces that podcasts embody and create, amplifying the unique and understudied perspectives and voices of podcasting. Through a multitude of interdisciplinary approaches, contributors explore the various cultural, racial, and identity-based markers undergirding the richness of the platform and argue that by understanding diverse content and content creators, we enrich the field of podcast studies as a whole. Scholars of media, communication, cultural, podcast, and critical race studies – among others – will find this book to be particularly useful."

The book features a chapter by COMM Assistant Professor, Briana Barner, on Black podcasting. Congrats to all on this excellent anthology!