Rhetorical Critical and Cultural Studies

In rhetorical, critical, and cultural studies we are interested in the management of power and influence in broad social structures. We rely on theories and methods that critique existing cultural formations, explain how such formations are contested, and imagine new ones. We attend to popular culture and political discourse, through multiple forms of critique.

Courses | Publications by faculty members | Dissertations and theses | Faculty and courses in other departments

Courses

CMS 390R Rhetoric and Ideology

CMS 390R Feminist Theory and Rhetorical Criticism

CMS 390P Rhetoric and the Public Sphere

CMS 390P Rhetoric of Social Movements

CMS 390R Rhetorical Criticism

CMS 390P Rhetoric and Psychoanalysis

CMS 390P The Subject

CMS 390P Rhetoric and Social Style

CMS 390R Rhetoric and Popular Culture

Publications by faculty members

Barry Brummett, A Rhetoric of Style. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008.

Barry Brummett, Rhetorical Homologies: Form, Culture, Experience. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.

Barry Brummett, The World and How We Describe it: Rhetorics of Reality, Representation, Simulation. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.

Joshua Gunn, "Death By Publicity: U.S. Freemasonry and the Public Drama of Secrecy." Rhetoric and Public Affairs 11 (2008): 243-277.

Joshua Gunn, Revised and reprinted as "The Two Rhetorics of Freemasonry, or, On the Function and Necessity of Masonic Secrecy." Heredom 15 (2007): 1-33.

Joshua Gunn, "Stick It In Your Ear: The Psychodynamics of iPod Enjoyment," co-authored with Mirko Hall.  Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 5 (2008): 135-157.

Joshua Gunn, "For the Love of Rhetoric, with Continual Reference to Kenny and Dolly." Quarterly Journal of Speech 94 (2008): 131-155. Lead article.

Joshua Gunn, "Father Trouble: Staging Sovereignty in Spielberg's War of the Worlds." Critical Studies in Media Communication 25 (2008): 1-27.  Lead article.

Joshua Gunn, "Size Matters: Polytoning Rhetoric's Perverse Apocalypse."  Rhetoric Society Quarterly 38 (2008): 82-108.

Ph.D. Dissertations and M.A. theses

Amanda J. Davis (Ph.D., 2008), assistant professor, University of Texas at Tyler. Dissertation: "Unveiling the Rhetoric of Torture: Abu Ghraib and American National Identity."

Lisa Glebatis Perks (Ph.D., 2008), assistant professor, Nazareth College. Dissertation: "A Sketch Comedy of Errors: Chappelle's Show, Stereotypes, and Viewers."

Jennifer J. Asenas (Ph.D., 2007), assistant professor, California State University, Long Beach. Dissertation: "Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize: Recalling the Black Freedom Struggle in Hurricane Katrina's Wake."

Jaime Wright (Ph.D., 2007), assistant professor, St. John's University. Dissertation: "Bodies of Evidence: The Rhetoric of Simulated History."

Lisa Renee Foster (Ph.D., 2006), assistant professor, University of Oklahoma. Dissertation: "Music, Publics, Protest, and the Cultivation of Democratic Nationalism After 9/11."

Carlnita Peterson Greene (Ph.D., 2006), assistant professor, Nazareth College. Dissertation: "Beyond the Binaries to Self-Fashioning: Identity as the Rhetoric of Social Style."

Angela Aguayo (Ph.D., 2005), assistant professor, Southern Illinois University. Dissertation: "Documentary Film/Video and Social Change: A Rhetorical Investigation of Dissent."

Kristen Hoerl (Ph.D., 2005), assistant professor, Auburn University. Dissertation: "Activism is Dead and Other Lies: Public Memory of the 1960s in Films of the 1990s."

Faculty and courses in other departments

Department of Rhetoric and Writing

RHE 387M Rhetorical Theory and Ethics

RHE 387M Rhetoric and Identification

RHE 387M Performative Rhetorics

RHE 387M Contemporary Theories of Rhetorical Agency

RHE 387M Rhetoric and/as Hermeneutics

Davis, Diane. Reading Ronell. Edited collection with an introduction. University of Illinois Press. Forthcoming, June 2009.

Davis, Diane. The UberReader: Selected Works of Avital Ronell. Edited collection with introduction. University of Illinois Press, 2008.

Davis, Diane. Breaking Up [at] Totality: A Rhetoric of Laughter. Rhetorical Theory and Philosophy Series. Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.

Davis, Diane. "Identification: Burke and Freud on Who You Are." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 38.2 (2008): 123-147.

Davis, Diane. "The Fifth Risk: A Response to John Muckelbauer's Response." Philosophy and Rhetoric 40.2 (2007): 248-256.

Davis, Diane. "Addressing Alterity: Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and the Non-Appropriative Relation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 38.3 (2005): 191-212.

Davis, Diane. "Finitude's Clamor; Or, Notes Toward a Communitarian Literacy." College Composition and Communication 53.1 (Sept. 2001): 119-145.

Davis, Diane. "Toward an Ethics of Listening." With Michelle Ballif and Roxanne Mountford. JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 20.4 (2000): 931-942.

Davis, Diane. "Negotiating the Differend: A Feminist Trilogue." With Michelle Ballif and Roxanne Mountford. JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 20.3 (2000): 583-625.

Davis, Diane. "Confessions of an Anacoluthon: Avital Ronell on Writing, Technology, Pedagogy, Politics." JAC: Journal of Composition Theory 20.2 (2000): 243-281.

Davis, Diane. "Addicted to Love; Or, Toward an Inessential Solidarity." JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 19.4 (1999): 633-656.

Davis, Diane. "Agonizing [With] Chantal Mouffe." JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 19.3 (1999): 465-476.

Davis, Diane. "Breaking Up [at] Phallocracy: Post-Feminism's Chortling Hammer."  Rhetoric Review 14.1 (Fall 1995): 126-140.

Department of Radio-Television-Film

RTF 385L Representing Reality

RTF 386L Historiography

RTF 385K Sexualities and US Cinema

RTF 386 American Media Reception Studies

RTF 386 Reception Theory

RTF 386 Critical Methods

RTF 384C Feminist and Queer Film Theory

RTF 386C Approaches to Authorship

RTF 386C Genre Theory

Staiger, Janet. Media Reception Studies (New York University, 2005)

Staiger, Janet. Authorship and Film co-ed. with David Gerstner (Routledge, 2003)

Staiger, Janet. Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception (New York University Press, 2000)

Staiger, Janet. Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era (New York University Press, 2000)

Staiger, Janet. Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema (University of Minnesota Press, 1995)