Publications
Scholarly Works
“From ‘Dead Wrong’ to Civil Rights History: The Durham ‘Royal Seven,’ Martin Luther King’s 1960 ‘Fill Up the Jails’ Speech, and the Rhetoric of Visibility”
Summary: This chapter focuses on an early example of direct action (a sit - in at the Royal Ice Cream Company in Durham, NC in June of 1957) led by Rev erend Douglas Moore. Despite the fact that Moore picked an ice cream parlor located in the middle of the black commu nity, and despite his connections to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this initial attempt at a sit - in campaign i n North Carolina was thwarted and Moore and his companions were given scant support by the local black community after their arrest. Yet, as we wil l demonstrate, the actions of the “Royal Seven ” functioned rhetorically to make visible public knowledge about the conditions of life in the segregated South and to illustrate the moral challenges facing its citizens. The far - reaching rhetorical consequence of this groundbreaking attempt at direct action may be seen , we argue, in King’s Durham speech in February of 1960, in which Dr. Kin g , at Moore’s invitation, first endorses sit - ins and other forms of direct action. Th e chapter describes and analyzes this initial attempt to visibly provoke new ways of thinking about the nature of democratic citizenship, illuminating the causes and implications of its initial less - than - positive reception and its actual consequence .
Full Citation: Gallagher, Victoria J., Zagacki, K., and Swift, J. “From ‘Dead Wrong’ to Civil Rights History: The Durham ‘Royal Seven,’ Martin Luther King’s 1960 ‘Fill Up the Jails’ Speech, and the Rhetoric of Visibility,” in Like a Fire: The Rhetoric of the Civil Rights SitIns. Edited by Sean Patrick O’Rourke and Lesli K. Pace. University of South Carolina Press.
“Public address as embodied experience: using digital technologies to enhance communicative and civic engagement in the communication classroom”
Summary: This study examines how students characterize their experience of a communication-based digital humanities project in relation to elements of situated embodiment and situated learning. Analysis of student response data indicates that the Virtual Martin Luther King Project situates students in a particular space and historical context resulting in communication outcomes including a form of cognitive attention that is conducive of reflection and fosters civic engagement. The essay concludes with a discussion of what is transferable from this case in relation to creating the conditions for situated learning and public address as immersive, embodied experience in communication classrooms.
Full Citation: Victoria J. Gallagher, Max M. Renner & Ragan Glover-Rijkse (2020) Public address as embodied experience: using digital technologies to enhance communicative and civic engagement in the communication classroom, Communication Education, 69:3, 281-299.
“Crafting A Necessary Space: The Virtual MLK Project”
Summary: Investigators on the Virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. Project (vMLK) began with a digital humanities vision: to develop an immersive recreation of a historic moment in the US civil rights movement (an interactive, digitally rendered experience of a 2014 recreation of MLK’s 1960 “A Creative Protest [Fill up the Jails]” speech). The vMLK project serves to expand understanding for scholars, students, and public audiences in regard to the following: 1) specific aspects of civil rights history in North Carolina, 2) the nature of civic and political engagement, both in the 1950s and 1960s and today, 3) the transformative, material, and affective aspects of public address, particularly in relation to issues of racial justice, and 4) the importance of sound in developing immersive DH experiences.
Full Citation: Gallagher, V., Renner, M., & Ham, D. (2020). Crafting A Necessary Space: The Virtual MLK Project. Visualizing Objects, Places, and Spaces: A Digital Project Handbook.
“Of Sound, Bodies, and Immersive Experience: Sonic Rhetoric and its Affordances in The Virtual Martin Luther King Project”
Summary: This study explores the ways in which sound appeals to and impacts bodies and with what results. It features an examination of audience responses to the Virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. (vMLK) Project in order to illuminate and theorize the material and rhetorical affordance of sonic rhetoric(s). This article includes sound clips referenced in the audience response data to further illustrate the analytical claims. The study concludes with a discussion of practical and theoretical insights regarding the rhetorical materiality of sound and offers future directions for attending to the affordances of sound.
Full Citation: Gallagher, V., Tomlinson, C. and Rosenfeld, C. (2022). Of Sound, Bodies, and Immersive Experience: Sonic Rhetoric and its Affordances in The Virtual Martin Luther King Project. enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture.
“Embodiment, Affect and Technologies of Recovery: Enacting Equity and Ethics through VR in the Public Speaking Classroom”
Summary: This chapter demonstrates how a collective VR experience of the Virtual Martin Luther King (vMLK) Project leads to significant learning outcomes in the Public Speaking course at a major university. Written student reflections and survey data demonstrate that the VR experience fosters the kind of reflection that evokes a participatory readiness for civic engagement by enabling students to put themselves into the position of those who heard the speech in 1960 and then transferring that experience to themselves as speakers who are engaging with issues and ideas today. The result is an ethical approach—utilizing VR—for teaching students how to engage in advocacy in and with communities.
Full Citation: Gallagher, Victoria J., Jones, Elizabeth R., Friedman, Malaka and Rosenfeld, Cynthia P. (2024). “Embodiment, Affect and Technologies of Recovery: Enacting Equity and Ethics through VR in the Public Speaking Classroom,” in Ethical Considerations of Virtual Reality in the College Classroom: Cross-Disciplinary Case Studies of Immersive Technology Implementation. Routledge, 118-132.
“Crafting a technology of recovery: the story of the Virtual Martin Luther King Project”
Summary: This article tells the story of a rhetorically informed transmedia digital humanities project called the Virtual Martin Luther King Project (vMLK). As a project that is interdisciplinary and community engaged in its development and enactments, vMLK provides a particularly rich site for examining ways to (re)shape the critical/cultural landscapes of higher education. The article explicates how and with what consequences the vMLK project functions as a “technology of recovery” and provides five implications that are significant for scholars working in the areas of public memory and critical studies.
Full Citation: Gallagher, V. J., and Renner, M. R. (2023). Crafting a technology of recovery: the story of the Virtual Martin Luther King Project. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 20/(2), 200-206.
Scholarly Features
Humanities for All: The Virtual Martin Luther King Project
Summary: This blog was written by Victoria J. Gallagher and discusses the vMLK Project's impact as a community-engaged digital humanities project.
Southern States Communication Association Research Profile: The Virtual Martin Luther King (vMLK) Project
Summary: The vMLK project featured on the Southern States Communication Association website.
Review of Virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. Project By Nupoor Ranade, North Carolina State University
Summary: The Virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. (vMLK) Project website acts as a comprehensive database covering as many details of the project as possible that help in promoting its use for archival as well as pedagogical purposes. This review looks closely at the work, providing an in-depth analysis of the text and visuals while providing tips for diversifying the pedagogical implications of the project.