Anneli Bowie

Anneli Bowie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg. Her postdoctoral research project, Re/framing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, aims to interrogate the ‘4IR’ movement as a rhetorical construct. Through a rhetorical lens, she critically reflects on the verbal and visual language used in highly persuasive ‘4IR’ discourse while considering the broader social, cultural and political significance thereof. 

Anneli completed a PhD in Information Design at the University of Pretoria (2018), with a thesis titled “Re/framing design trends: a Burkean meta-rhetorical approach”. A recurring theme throughout her research is the exploration of rhetorical aspects surrounding ‘persuasive’ visual cultural products and their discourses, as well as the dynamics surrounding visual cultural trends and movements. 

She has worked as a lecturer, research supervisor and academic coordinator in Information Design and Visual Culture Studies at the School of Arts, University of Pretoria (2010-2017). During this time she participated in a 22-month Erasmus Mundus PhD exchange (2014-2016), where she visited Uppsala University (Sweden) as a guest PhD researcher.