Jade E. Davis, associate university librarian for Teaching, Learning, and Research at the University of Iowa, was selected as the recipient of the Rhetoric Society of America’s 2025 Book Award. In The Other Side of Empathy (Duke University Press, 2023), Davis contests the value of empathy as an affective or critical tool. 

The RSA gives a Book Award each year to recognize an exemplary work in rhetorical studies—broadly construed—published by a Society member in the previous year.

The selection committee reviewed more than 40 books and shared that, “In the book, Davis complicates empathy and encourages us to be expansive in our thinking about what empathy does across many contexts. The book clearly, thoughtfully, and richly contributes to rhetorical studies, Black studies, and disability studies, and demonstrates a mastery of rhetorical, cultural, and humanistic theory.”

Davis officially received her award during the RSA Institute in June 2025.