From the Chair

Welcome to the Department of Rhetoric at Hofstra University. Communication studies has a long history in the liberal arts, and our discipline continues to endure because individuals, society, and business need people who can craft and interpret messages with skill.

Our program blends theory, history, critical practice, and performance to explore how meaning is created and shared in a social world. Course offerings examine communication and meaning in verbal messages, visual languages and embodied performances. Special areas of strength for the department include rhetoric analysis and theory and performance studies. Students may select among three concentrations: A) Communication, Citizenship and Public Advocacy, B) Communication, Culture and Social Action, and C) Speech Communication. Our diverse course offerings include public speaking, argumentation and debate, interpersonal communication, communication and gender, performing history, political communication and rhetoric and popular culture.

In the tradition of the liberal arts, we promote skills and knowledge to enable intellectual growth as well as professional satisfaction. Our mission is to help students become clear, sharp thinkers and eloquent spokespersons for the things that matter to them - personally, professionally, and politically.

Philip Dalton, Ph.D.
Chair
Department of Rhetoric

Recent Achievements by our Faculty

Dr. Larry Russell received the 2010 Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award at the annual conference of the National Communication Association. The award, given every two years, recognizes scholarship that makes the most effective use of narrative in ethnography. The award was based upon Dr. Russel's journal article, "Learning How to Walk" in the International Review of Qualitative Research.

Dr. Lisa Merrill was awarded the Eccles Centre Visiting Professor Fellowship in North American Studies at the British Library for 2010-2011 for her research project: "Performing Race and Reading Antebellum American Bodies." She was presented with this honor at the British Association for American Studies Conference in Norwich, England, at the University of East Anglia.