Erin J. Rand, associate professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, authored “Minor Troubles: Racial Figurations of Youth Sexuality and Childhood’s Queerness” (Ohio State University Press). The book investigates a series of controversies about youth sexuality and queerness from the early 21st century: adult concerns about teen sexting, the bullying and suicides of queer kids, trans youths’ access to gender-segregated bathrooms at school, and sex education. Rand focuses on the rhetorical process of figuration in creating cultural ideas about childhood, providing a roadmap for understanding alarmist discourses about children, race, gender, and sexuality.