Communication and Rhetorical Studies M.A.

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An Award-Winning Master's Program

Our degree program features nationally and internationally prominent, award-winning faculty who balance deep roots in the discipline with interdisciplinary innovations. Its curriculum stresses theoretical and methodological diversity, close guidance and advising by faculty instructors and high academic standards. We specialize in training M.A. candidates to thrive as teachers and scholars and to succeed at the most renowned doctoral programs in the country.

The M.A. in communication and rhetorical studies is a past recipient of the Outstanding Master’s Program Award from the National Communication Association, the discipline's leading professional organization.

Admissions requirements

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Areas of Specialty

Graduate seminars and research in the CRS department offer training in the following areas, which we invite students to approach in a spirit of academic exploration and collaboration:

Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies

This area uses a variety of critical, feminist, postmodern and postcolonial perspectives to examine the relationship between communication and questions of power, equality and social advocacy. Courses and research projects examine such specific topics as disparities in political representation, personal identity and difference, non-hierarchical organizing processes, alternative forms of public dialogue, community activism and organizing and other social justice issues.

Rhetorical Theory and Criticism

Our program is designed to allow students to either specialize in one of these areas of research or combine them to develop their own distinctive scholarly profile. Common efforts to demonstrate the importance of communication and rhetoric to vital questions of political power, social influence and personal identity unify instruction in all of the aforementioned topics. The M.A. degree in communication and rhetorical studies is a national leader in graduate education because it combines disciplinary traditions with interdisciplinary innovations to consistently produce student excellence.

A Glimpse Inside Sims Hall

Sims Hall is the home of the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies.

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Curriculum

Our curriculum has earned national and international honors based on a proven record of scholarly and pedagogical excellence in rhetoric, critical/cultural studies, and discourse analysis.

We maintain a curricular vision of worldmaking education through theoretical, critical, historical and performative intervention (feminist, queer, critical race, Marxist, post-colonial theories; historiography; critical and analytical methods; engaged scholarship). This curricular vision is interdisciplinary and global in its grasp and reach, with existing research strengths in security studies; social movements; gender, race and sexuality studies; and health, intercultural, organizational and environmental communication.

Graduate students in the communication and rhetorical studies program begin with two core courses designed to introduce them to the department: Contemporary Theories of Rhetoric (CRS 603) and Critical Media and Cultural Studies (CRS 607). After these core courses (required during the first semester of M.A. coursework), students will work with their selected faculty advisors to choose from a wide variety of courses in the department and across the University to create their own unique programs of study.

The graduate elective courses offered depend on faculty expertise and student interest. Some of the graduate electives taught recently include:

Public Memory
Talk and the Body
Visual Culture
Rhetorical Criticism
Queer Rhetorics
Performance and Culture
Rhetoric and Social Justice
Rhetoric of Fashion
Foucault and Rhetoric
Speechwriting
Rhetoric of Film
Feminist Rhetorics
Epidemic Rhetorics
Intercultural Communication
Race, Rhetoric, and Masculinity
Digital Performance in Everyday Life
Communication and Climate Crisis

View degree requirements, courses and student learning outcomes

Faculty and Student Research and Distinction

The relatively small communication and rhetorical studies faculty has produced numerous books, articles in refereed academic journals, and book chapters. They have national and international reputations as scholars, teachers and mentors.

CRS faculty and graduate students have earned a notably high number of research awards and competitive grants, commensurate in quantity and quality with the most prestigious doctoral-level faculty and graduate students in our field. Faculty honors and awards have been received in the following categories:

Scholarly recognition from the National Communication Association (NCA), our leading professional organization, in the form of multiple book and article awards; multiple former Wallace Memorial and New Investigator Award winners, recognizing early-career scholars teaching and mentorship awards; and distinguished scholarship awards. Faculty have also received multiple scholarship and teaching awards at the regional and state level.
Fulbright, NEH, and Humanities Fellowships at University of Malaysia, Punjab University, Syracuse University, Massey University and Vanderbilt University, and visiting faculty appointments.
Competitive internal and external research grants.
Other distinctions include a Meredith Teaching Professorship; multiple faculty, service or teaching awards from VPA and the University.

The faculty has also distinguished itself in the prestigious disciplinary organizational positions they have held, including the presidency and board of directors of the Rhetoric Society of America; NCA Publications Board membership and divisional chairpersons; book review editorships; and co-founding the journal QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. Finally, our faculty features board members on multiple elite journals inside and outside the discipline.

Meet the CRS graduate faculty