Rhetoric and Public Advocacy (RPA)
The graduate program in rhetoric and public advocacy (RPA) focuses on the study of how citizen actors use public argumentation and other rhetorical processes to influence cultural, social, and political change. The program is built on foundation courses in Classical Rhetoric, 20th and 21st Century Rhetorical Criticism and Modern Rhetorical Theory.
The program is designed to give candidates a mature grasp of the varied specialties and perspectives embraced by the field and to develop research competence essential to a life of productive scholarship. Cognate work of interest to rhetoricians can be found in the other two graduate programs in the department. In addition, work in related departments—American studies, anthropology, cinema and comparative literature, English, history, journalism and mass communication, political science, POROI, sociology, and women’s studies—complements RPA course offerings. The Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI) offers a certificate program, allowing doctoral students to specialize in the study of how academic fields use argumentative and linguistic strategies to generate and control knowledge.
RHETORICAL STUDIES FACULTY
Barbara Biesecker, Associate Professor of Communication Studies. Contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, feminist theory and criticism, cultural studies, and visual rhetoric.
David Depew, Professor of Communication Studies, POROI. Rhetoric of science (especially evolutionary biology), rhetoric and philosophy --ancient and early modern, 19 th- and 20 th-century ideology and aesthetics. On leave Fall 2001.
Bruce Gronbeck, A. Craig Baird Distinguished Professor of Public Address. Rhetorical and media criticism, political rhetoric, visual and performative rhetoric.
David Hingstman, Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of the A. Craig Baird Center for Public Advocacy and Debate. Argumentation (specialty in law), forensics, free of speech/First Amendment issues, postmodern thought.
Tom Tabako, Assistant Professor, specializing in new social movements, protest, and democracy, and argumentation.
FACULTY CROSS-LISTING COURSES INTO THE RHETORICAL STUDIES PROGRAM
John Nelson, Professor of Political Science. Rhetoric and myth, science fiction, and environmentalism; political campaigning (specialty in visual rhetoric).
Takis Poulakos, Associate Professor of Rhetoric. Greco-Roman rhetorical theory and practice, rhetoric of desire.
OTHER FACULTY IN COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Leslie Baxter, Professor. Interpersonal and family communication, communication (especially dialogic) theory and research.
Steve Duck, Starch Research Professor. Personal relationships, constructivism.
Kristine Fitch, Associate Professor. Ethnography, interpersonal and intercultural communication, persuasion.
Joy Hayes, Assistant Professor. Media and nationalism, radio, media and dialogic theory.
John Durham Peters, Professor. Media history and theory. Leighton Pierce, Professor. Media production, production theory.