Areas of Specialization
Rhetoric and Composition
The Penn State English Department's graduate program in rhetoric and composition has been a national leader for well over a decade. In addition to gaining state-of-the-art sophistication in rhetorical history, theory, criticism, and pedagogy, students joining the rhetoric group at Penn State enter a lively intellectual environment in which rhetorical studies, composition studies, technology studies, literary studies, women's studies, African American studies, Latino/a studies, science studies, and cultural studies interanimate one another. Graduate students will find a strong tradition in rhetorical studies (associated for many years with the journals Philosophy and Rhetoric and Rhetoric Society Quarterly and nourished for two decades by the Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition), a large and accomplished rhetoric faculty (not only in English but also in Communication Arts and Sciences) with wide-ranging interests, a chance to collaborate with other faculty, a variety of teaching opportunities, and an optimistic and talented community of fellow graduate students who are actively involved in teaching and research.
Students in the rhetoric and composition program will have the opportunity to inform and deepen their commitments to rhetoric and composition and expand their knowledge of rhetoric with an actively publishing, nationally visible faculty whose interests range from feminist rhetorics (Cheryl Glenn) to the rhetoric of science (Richard Doyle), from the classical and Renaissance tradition (Ryan Stark) to Kenneth Burke (Jack Selzer), from African American, Asian, and ethnic rhetorics (Keith Gilyard and Xiaoye You) to rhetoric in the public sphere (Rosa Eberly), from technical communication and rhetorics of technology (Stuart Selber) to writing program administration (Jon Olson). Suresh Canagarajah works with concepts of World Englishes and the effects of globalization on language communities.
In addition, rhetoric students often work closely with other faculty in English-in recent years both Susan Squier and Jeffrey Nealon have chaired dissertation committees of rhetoric students-and with faculty in Communication Arts and Sciences, particularly Thomas Benson (rhetoric and film), Steven Browne (the history of rhetoric in the United States), Christopher Johnstone (classical rhetoric), and Michael Hogan (social movements). All faculty members are closely involved in the education of all rhetoric students, who invent rich dissertation topics and become professionally active through conference presentations and publications. In the past five years many dissertations have been published as books, three have been recognized with the CCCC Berlin Outstanding Dissertation Award, and one has earned the CCCC Award for Best Dissertation in Technical Communication. In addition, students have won a Mitchem Fellowship, an NCTE Research Foundation Cultivating Scholars of Color Award, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship, and other prizes.
In short, students accepted into the program can look forward to strong support and stimulating studies, personal relationships with faculty and students, and opportunities to benefit from other English Department faculty and rhetorically minded faculty in other departments. 97.5% of our graduates have earned tenure-line appointments upon graduation. In the past six years graduates have taken tenure-track positions with The University of Texas at Austin, the University of South Carolina, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Minnesota, Indiana University, the University of Illinois, the University of Florida, Syracuse University, Clemson University, and the University of Rhode Island-among many other outstanding universities.
Seminars Recently Offered (selected)
- Histories and Historiographies of Rhetoric
- Cornel West and bell hooks
- Renaissance Rhetoric
- Concepts of Literacy
- Technoscience
- Postcritical Perspectives on Literacy Technologies
- African American Rhetoric
- Rhetoric and Pragmatism
- Rhetoric and Technology
- Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition
- Feminist Rhetorics
- English On Line
- Kenneth Burke
Recent Dissertations
Andrew Alexander, The Ideas Course in Composition, 1900-1915
Dana Anderson, Arguing Identity: Strategizing the Self in Narratives of Conversion
Adam Banks, Transformative Access: an African American Rhetoric of Technology
Jeremiah Dyehouse, English and Information: Rhetoric, Educational Work, and Teaching with Technology
Jess Enoch, Women's Resistant Pedagogies in Turn-of-the-Century America: Lydia Maria Child, Zitkala Sa, Jovita Idar, Marta Penã, and Leonor Villegas de Magnón
Keith Gibson, Arguing Artificially: Understanding the Debates that have Shaped Cognitive Science
Valerie Hansen, Rhetorics, Subjectivities, and Visualization Technologies in the Case of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope
Brent Henze,Scientific Rhetorics in the Emergence of British Ethnology, 1808-1848: Discourses, Disciplines, and Institutions
Jordynn Jack, Rhetorics of Time: Women's Role in Wartime Science, 1939-1945
Les Knotts, Black Knights, the Sword, and the Pen: Cultural Cooperation in Cadet Classrooms
Mark Longaker, Rhet/Comp and Revolution: History, Rhetoric and Pedagogy in Colonial and Contemporary American Higher Education
John Muckelbauer, The Future of Rhetorical Invention
Jodie Nicotra, The Force of Habit: Rhetoric, Repetition, and Identity from Darwin to Anslinger
Vorris Nunley, African American Hush Harbors
Marjan van Schaik, The Required Composition and Rhetoric Course at Bryn Mawr College, 1885-1920: Liberal Culture and Current-Traditional Rhetoric
Wendy Sharer, Rhetoric, Reform, and Political Activism in U.S. Women's Organizations, 1920-1930
Dan Smith, Ethos and Affect: Rethinking Pedagogy and Civic Virtue
Julie Vedder, Modifying Mothers: the Rhetorical Construction of Prenatal Substance Use in American Discourse
Recent Placements (Since 2002)
(all are tenure-line appointments)
Dana Anderson (2002): Indiana University
John Muckelbauer (2002): University of South Carolina
Marjan van Shaik (2002): still seeking a position
Adam Banks (2003): Syracuse University
Jessica Enoch (2003): University of New Hampshire
Keith Gibson (2003): Auburn University
Lester Knotts (2003): United States Military Academy
Mark Longaker (2003): University of Texas-Austin
Jeremiah Dyehouse (2004): University of Rhode Island
Valerie Hanson (2004): Philadelphia College of the Arts
Vorris Nunley (2004): University of California, Riverside
Dan Smith (2004): University of South Carolina
Andrew Alexander (2005): Castleton State College
Jordynn Jack (2005): University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Jodie Nicotra (2005): University of Idaho
Marika Seigel (2005): Michigan Technological University
Jessica Enoch (2004): University of Pittsburgh
Scott Wible (2006): West Virginia University
Jeff Pruchnic (2006): Wayne State University
Aesha Adams (2006): Marquette University
Trey Connor (2006): South Floriday - Saint Petersburg
Jay Jordan (2006): University of Utah
Tony Ceraso (2007): DePaul University
Matt Newcomb (2007): Hobart and William Smith College
Steven Schneider (2007): University of Alabama
