Rhetoric, Politics, and Society (MA & PhD)

The graduate program in Rhetoric, Politics, and Society challenges students to consider the core question of rhetoric’s role in the diverse settings of America’s culture. Located in a city with a rich and controversial legacy involving civil rights, faculty in this program focus on how public address, advocacy, media, and the art, both historically and theoretically, have influenced the multiple meanings of American citizenry and human identity.

Our curriculum offers a foundation in the general histories, practices, and theories of rhetoric study, while also motivating students to chart their own direction as researchers and teachers. Working with faculty whose foci include presidential rhetoric, civic controversy, dialogue, pedagogy, women’s public address, and racial and ethnic identity, this program prepares future scholars and teachers to communicate the vibrancy of the rhetorical tradition into the 21st century.

Faculty:

Leroy G. Dorsey, PhD, Professor and Department Chair
Dr. Dorsey examines American public address, particularly presidential rhetoric, ranging from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama. He is currently working on an essay involving President Theodore Roosevelt’s rhetorical management of women’s rights at the turn of the twentieth century. Publications representative of his work include:

Leroy G. Dorsey, “Narrating the Presidential ‘Race’: Barack Obama and the American Dream” in Communicating Marginalized Masculinities: Identity Politics in TV, Film, and New Media, Ronald L Jackson and Jamie Moshin, eds. (New York: Routledge Press—forthcoming).

Leroy G. Dorsey, “We Are All Americans, Pure and Simple”: Theodore Roosevelt and the Myth of Americanism. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007.

Antonio de Velasco, PhD, Associate Professor
Dr. de Velasco teaches rhetoric and publishes on topics ranging from social theory to presidential politics to the history of rhetoric. He is author of Centrist Rhetoric: The Production of Political Presence in the Clinton Presidency (Lexington Books: 2010) and co-editor of Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy (Waveland Press: 2011). He is currently working on two books: a co-edited anthology of essays by the late rhetorician Michael C. Leff and a book that explores the pedagogical origins and uses of rhetorical theory in the twentieth century United States. He will be on sabbatical in the Spring of 2013.

Allison Graham, PhD, Professor
Dr. Graham’s current research focuses on national and regional television coverage of political events of the 1950s and 1960s, and the changing functions of archival news footage in fiction and nonfiction film.

D. Gray Matthews, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department Vice-Chair
Gray Matthews’ major project is the formulation and practice of a contemplative approach to communication, with a critical element of identifying the atrophy of humane communication into a culture of noise in conjunction with a critique of hypermodernity as commotion. His current scholarship in teaching concerns the relationship between compassion and communication. Recent publications include:

Gray Matthews, "Introduction: Upon hearing an aeolian harp," The Merton Annual, v.24, 7-14.

Gray Matthews, "The heart of the fire: Technology, commotion and contemplation," The Merton Annual, v.24, 128-149.

Sandra Sarkela, PhD, Associate Professor
Dr. Sarkela’s current research is focused on the history and criticism of Anglo-American public address, particularly 18th-century theory and practice, and public address of American women. She has just completed a manuscript on the political rhetoric of John Dickinson (1732-1808), which emphasizes the relationship between rhetoric and moderation. In conjunction with that project, She is a contributing editor on the Dickinson Writings Project, directed by Dr. Jane Calvert at the University of Kentucky.