Matthew K. Farmer

About

Matt Farmer studies and teaches rhetoric. He serves as the Department's Undergraduate Coordinator and works alongside Kristen Hill to lead recruiting efforts. His research focuses on the intersection of religion and politics. He teaches a range of undergraduate courses including Communication Inquiry, Visual Rhetoric, Communication Ethics, Senior Capstone, and more. In each class, he aims to connect course material to students' everyday lived reality to help them see rhetoric all around them.
As a teacher, he emphasizes the local and the immediate as case studies to facilitate student understanding of broader trends. Examples of this practice include a recent Senior Capstone course focusing on the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce's rhetoric surrounding local xAI datacenters, a semester-long study in a Communication Ethics course on the dismissal of Dr. Marie Feagins from the Superintendent position at Memphis Shelby County Schools, and the connection between Classical rhetoric and modern cultural influencers in a course that he created bridging the ancient and the modern.

Education

M.A., Communication Studies, University of Georgia
B.A., Communication Studies, University of Memphis
B.A., Economics, University of Memphis