Janine Butler

Associate Professor

Department of Liberal Studies

National Technical Institute for the Deaf

jmbdls@rit.edu

Janine Butler

Associate Professor

Department of Liberal Studies

National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Education

BA, University of Maryland; MA, Montclair State University; Ph.D., East Carolina University

Bio

Dr. Janine Butler is a tenured Associate Professor who primarily teaches writing courses. She earned her B.A. in English with a concentration in Language, Writing, and Rhetoric as well as a minor in Philosophy from the University of Maryland, College Park. She earned her M.A. in English with an emphasis in Writing Studies from Montclair State University. She holds a doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in Rhetoric, Writing, and Professional Communication from East Carolina University. She teaches Writing Seminar; Science, Technology, and Values; Leadership and Accessible Technology; among other courses at RIT/NTID. Her teaching and scholarly interests center on captions and access, multimodal communication, and embodiment. Her research projects explore strategies for improving access to digital media and compositions, particularly through captions. She loves learning from students just as much as teaching them.

jmbdls@rit.edu

Select Scholarship

Uninvited Presentations

Butler, Janine. "Artistic Expression and Access: A Spotlight on Storytelling with Captions." Computers & Writing. Computers & Writing. Fort Worth, Texas. 21 Jun. 2024. Conference Presentation.

Journal Paper

Butler, Janine and Stacy Bick. "Audience Awareness and Access: The Design of Sound and Captions as Valuable Composition Practices." College Composition and Communication 74. 3 (2023): 416–445. Print.

Butler, Janine. "Writing the Central Role of Captions in Live Performances." College English 85. 6 (2023): 498-521. Print.

Butler, Janine and Stacy Bick. "Sound, Captions, Action: Voices in Video Composition Projects." Computers and Composition 62. (2021): 1-15. Print.

Butler, Janine. "The Visual Experience of Accessing Captioned Television and Digital Videos." Television and New Media 21. 7 (2020): 679–696. Print.

Gonzales, Laura and Janine Butler. "Working Toward Social Justice through Multilingualism, Multimodality, and Accessibility in Writing Classrooms." Composition Forum 44. (2020): 0. Web.

Fink, Margaret, et al. "Honoring Access Needs at Academic Conferences through Computer Assisted Real-Time Captioning (CART) and Sign Language Interpreting." College Composition and Communication 72. 1 (2020): 103–106. Print.

Butler, Janine. "Perspectives of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Viewers of Captions." American Annals of the Deaf 163. 5 (2019): 534–553. Print.

Butler, Janine. "Principles for Cultivating Rhetorics and Research Studies within Communities." Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society 8. 1 (2019): 0. Web.

Butler, Janine. "Integral Captions and Subtitles: Designing a Space for Embodied Rhetorics and Visual Access." Rhetoric Review 37. 3 (2018): 286-299. Print.

Butler, Janine. "Embodied Captions in Multimodal Pedagogies." Composition Forum 39. (2018): 0. Web.

Butler, Janine. "Bodies in Composition: Teaching Writing through Kinesthetic Performance." Composition Studies 45. 2 (2017): 73—90. Print.

Currently Teaching

LEAD-307

Leadership and Accessible Technology

3 Credits

This course equips students with tools for understanding principles and uses of accessible technologies, such as captioned media, mobile applications, and voice recognition software, with a focus on how deaf and hard-of-hearing leaders and organizations work to ensure access to communication. This course is built on the framework of access as a continual process in which users advocate for the needs of their community. This course establishes the legal requirements that mandate access technologies, such as captioned media, and reviews how leaders have campaigned for increased access to media. These underlying principles inform the course’s overriding exploration of the benefits and limitations of current technologies that may not be fully accessible; how current leaders and leading organizations utilize access technologies to facilitate signed, spoken, and written communication; and current work on the next generation of access technologies. The readings, assignments, and discussions in this course will encourage students to recognize how access technologies can support individuals as well as how leaders can serve as advocates who work to fight for improved access to communication and other resources in their communities.