Using an episode of a student affairs podcast for professional development, we engage in a critical discourse analysis to better understand what discourses the podcast host and guest rely on when discussing college students engaged in sex work. Further, we examine how the discourses the host and guest use contribute to particular logics about sex…

Intersectionality is core to contemporary feminist rhetorical criticism. It is also a complex concept with great potential for promoting social change by shifting discourses about identity in the public sphere. Therefore, communication scholars have a vested interest in teaching the basics of intersectional criticism to undergraduate and graduate…

Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Cultural Rhetorics, Public Memory Studies. Objective: This activity introduces undergraduates to ideological criticism as a method of rhetorical criticism by illustrating the co-constitutive nature of ideology and rhetoric to universities occupying colonized lands, waters, and airways.

Courses: Rhetorical criticism, public address, persuasion, public memory theory, argumentation. Objectives: Through analysis of public controversies about Confederate monuments on college campuses, students will: (1) explore the concept of "public memory," how groups of people form shared interpretations of the past; (2) examine how…

One long-held belief in archival education is that physical primary sources engage students more effectively than digitized sources do. This investigation questions that belief by analyzing whether and to what extent the format of a primary source impacts student engagement and learning, using a controlled study of students in a business ethics…

Students rarely question the relevance of most communication courses. For example, most students realize that courses focused on improving public speaking and interpersonal skills will benefit them personally and professionally after graduation. Convincing them that a rhetorical theory and criticism course is equally empowering can be a bit more…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the diverse definitions of sustainability in higher education, focusing on the rhetorical uses of the term among various institutions within the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). Design/methodology/approach: The paper begins with an overview of the term…

In this article, the author uses storytelling to retell moments in the history of our field. Using personal anecdote alongside critical race theory and critical whiteness studies, she critiques the Writing About Writing movement by re-situating it in history: first narrating it as a contemporary of the Translingualism movement, and then comparing…

Courses: This single-class teaching activity was designed for courses on public speaking, rhetorical criticism, and critical thinking. In addition, instructors can adapt this activity for online or face-to-face courses on intercultural communication, organizational communication, listening, and political communication. Objectives: By completing…

Through an ecological and autoethnographic analysis of a repository of diachronically archived texts written over a period of six years in multiple cultural, geographical, and disciplinary contexts, the author unfolds his materialized experiences of coming to terms with, embracing, and composing with rhetorical differences as spatiotemporal…

The managed university functions as the prominent organizational paradigm in higher education. Returning to Max Weber's original analysis of bureaucracy, several fundamental characteristics of the managed university come to surface, including the emphasis on specialization, hierarchy, and secrecy. Among these characteristics is the importance of…

Courses: Persuasion; Persuasive Speaking. Objectives: Students will demonstrate the ability to apply persuasive concepts in constructing persuasive messages creatively, and students will present and analyze their persuasive messages.

This essay takes a look at what I call anti-progressivism in education or, more particularly, criticism of progressive education that was so vocal and visceral that it earns a label, at least initially, of anti-progressivism. After a brief introduction discussing the terms in general, I look at three instances of anti-progressivism in the 1950s…

The current societal pressures regarding religious liberty and institutional sustainability for Christian higher education in America call for rhetorical leadership from presidents of Christian colleges and universities. This study provides a biblically rooted and theoretically sound, multifaceted approach using sociorhetorical criticism and…

Policy texts present problems, propose solutions to those problems and persuade multiple audiences of the legitimacy of the proposed problems and solutions. The rhetorical analysis of two decades of higher education and science and technology discourse in Finland, Germany, UK, Portugal and USA highlights the discursive elements that contribute to…