Communication Studies

Harriet Elliot Lecture Series 2008

Why Do You Say That?!#: Challenging Communication to Transform Public Life

Our Keynote Speaker
David Zarefsky
Owen L. Coon Professor of Communication Studies, Northwestern University
Past President, National Communication Association

Teaches courses in the history and criticism of U.S. public discourse, with a special focus on the pre-Civil War period and on the 1960’s, and also teaches courses in argumentation anal in Presidential rhetoric. Additionally, he directs the honors program for seniors in Communication Studies. Among his publications are books on the Lincoln-Douglas debates and on the rhetoric of the war on poverty during the Johnson administration, He currently is working on the controversy surrounding the annexation of Texas during the 1840’s and on the legal and political dispute following the 2000 election and culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Bush v. Gore.

Our Panel

Brenda Allen

Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of Colorado at Denver

Areas of specialty: Organizational communication, diversity, social identity, computer-mediated communication. Author of the book, Difference matters: Communicating social identity.

Thomas K. Nakayama

Professor, Arizona State University

Research is focused on developing critical approaches to intercultural communication and public communication. Former director of Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona state University. Fellow of the International Academy of Intercultural Research, former Fulbrighter at the Universite de Mons-Hainaut in Belgium, and Board of Directors of the Arizona Humanities Council.

Barnett Pearce

Public Dialogue Consortium & Professor, Fielding Graduate University

Consulted with communities and organizations, facilitated public and private meetings, and trained professionals in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa for the past 15 years. He is a member of the faculty of the Human and Organizational Development Program of the Fielding Graduate University and is a Founding Member of the Public Dialogue Consortium. Known for his work in communication theory, he has written seven books and over one hundred articles and chapters, He was a Senior Visiting Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford University, in1989, and a Fulbright Fellow in Argentina in 1997. Before joining Fielding Graduate University, he was a member of the faculty at the University of North Dakota, University of Kentucky, University of Massachusetts, and Loyola University Chicago, serving as Department Chair at Massachusetts and Loyola. He has a Ph.D. from Ohio University.

Additional Information

Brochure