Michael Carlson Kapper, Assistant Professor of English and Rhetoric Coordinator at Lees-McRae College. photo by shelby j. bobot, ©2007; used by permission.
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Professional Biography
Michael Carlson Kapper is Assistant Professor of English and Rhetoric Coordinator at Lees-McRae College, in Banner Elk, NC. Kapper joined the faculty of Lees-McRae in August 2007, after three years as Assistant Professor of English at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. He earned his PhD in English with primary concentration in Rhetoric & Composition Studies and secondary concentration in Theory & Cultural Studies from Purdue University in 2004. Kapper’s undergraduate and master’s degrees are from the University of Akron (BA 1996, MA 1999); both degrees are in English, with the master’s concentration in Composition Studies.
Kapper’s development as a scholar has followed a somewhat unusual path. In high school, he was known as a math and science “specialist”; for instance, along with his teammate Koji Hayakawa, he placed 2nd in the regional and 4th in the state Science Olympiad physics lab competition. The humanities, in general, were simply not his forte, though he did well enough in those classes, as well. Until very late in high school, Kapper planned a double major in college: chemistry and physics. Indeed, upon matriculation at Eastern Mennonite University in the fall of 1993, he declared a double major: English and Psychology, later adding secondary education certification to the mix.
When he moved to the University of Akron in the fall of 1994, however, Kapper decided to keep the English major and change the psychology to a minor. And that was how it stayed. By the fall of 1996, he had decided that graduating a semester early was more important than taking a few courses and finishing additional minors in classics and creative writing (one more semester of Greek and an archæology class for classics; and an additional “intro” course for creative writing—either poetry or screenwriting). So, he took a semsester off before moving on to the next thing: the MA in English literature, with a focus in Medieval Lit.
Which lasted about two months. In the fall of 1997, Kapper began his career as a first-year composition instructor, and fell in love. While he still studied Old & Middle English Language and Literature and Latin in his MA program, he changed his focus from literature to composition and never looked back. After completing the MA in 1999, writing his thesis on Plato under the direction of Dr. Lance Svehla, Kapper moved on to Purdue University, where he maintained his interest in the classical, but added an appreciation for the postmodern and an interest in the concept of the posthuman that grabbed him by the throat. Kapper's doctoral thesis, directed by Dr. David Blakesley, examined the concept of the posthuman in terms of its usefulness for rhetoric and composition studies.
After graduating from Purdue in 2004, Kapper taught first at Capital University, where he was instrumental in redesigning the Professional Writing major, developing courses focusing on professional writing and electronic communication, and working in the first-year writing program. Now at Lees-McRae College, Kapper teaches courses in writing and language, administers the first-year rhetoric (comprising writing and speech) program, and is working with interested faculty on campus to improve the integration of communications activities with other courses on campus (writing and speaking ascross the curriculum).
Kapper is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Two-Year College English Association, the Popular Culture Association, the Council of Writing Program Administrators, and Carolinas Writing Program Administrators. In addition to membership in these organizations, Kapper is the Composition/Rhetoric Area Chair for the Popular Culture Association, which has grown from one of the smallest areas at the convention to one of the largest in the four years of his tenure as area chair (in 2007 PCA C/R had 20 panels on the program, tying it as the third largest area, and the largest “true academic” area—whatever that might mean; only SciFi/Fantasy and Popular Music were larger, and C/R tied with TV). The PCA C/R area also began hosting a SIG at the CCCC convention in 2007; we hope to continue this tradition in the future.