Dr. Jenny Stone earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa before joining the Rhetoric Department faculty in 2016.  Her scholarly research concerns trauma-informed critical pedagogy; place studies (especially the Midwest); the rhetoric of religion in U.S. culture; theories of humor; the intersection of science, religion, and political thought in science fiction; gender studies; 19th-century and contemporary literature of the United States; the rhetoric of apology; disability rhetoric, and the language of mass incarceration in America. 

Besides teaching on campus, Dr. Stone also taught with the University of Iowa Liberal Arts Beyond Bars (LABB) program at Oakdale Prison in Coralville. She served on LABB’s board of advisors, and she ran the Success in Rhetoric (SiR) tutoring program at the Rhetoric Department’s satellite writing center at Oakdale. In addition, Dr. Stone served for the six years as a mentor for the UI Guardian Scholars Foundation, a program supporting college students who are exiting the foster care system. Currently, Dr. Stone is on the board of the Beloved Community Initiative for Racial Justice, Healing, and Reconciliation in Iowa, an Iowa City organization dedicated to dismantling racism.

Dr. Stone is a fan of using digital projects in her courses, including exploring the genre of video essays in Rhetoric 3630: Apology & the Art of Verbal Self-Defense, examining digital protest art for Rhetoric 1030, and crafting websites as vehicles for persuasion in Rhetoric 1040: Writing and Reading. Therefore, her students are very familiar with the Iowa Digital Engagement and Learning (IDEAL) Media Studio.

Prior to coming to the University of Iowa in 2009, Dr. Stone served as a production editor for Harcourt Brace, taught middle school ESL and high school English, worked as special-education aide, wrote language-arts content for Education Media and Publishing Group, and taught English to migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers.

A native of coastal California, Dr. Stone finds Iowa horizons equally delightful: the ever-changing clouds in the skies, the undulating tallgrass prairie in high winds, the lake views at Squire Point. Dr. Stone highly recommends that her students find a favorite hiking trail while making the University of Iowa home.