My research interests include critical security studies, organizational culture, communication technology, and qualitative research methods. My mission is to help scholarly, professional, and public audiences better appreciate the role of communication in conceptualizing and practicing 'security.' Specifically, my work focuses on how political, military, and scientific groups debate competing images and narratives of 'security,' as they create, administer, and revise related policies, programs, and operations. This work considers how democratic interaction within and between security elites and publics may contribute to the development of more accurate, just, and successful security narratives. I am currently completing on a book project involving the role of simulation, imitation, and mutual adaptation (i.e., mimesis) in post-9/11 U.S. media culture.
keywords
communication theory, critical-cultural studies, qualitative research methods, nuclear weapons, national security, critical security studies, mimesis
COMM 2650 - Business and Professional Communication
Secondary Instructor
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Spring 2022
Develops knowledge of concepts and skills required for successful participation in contemporary workplace communication. Focuses on communication processes associated with contexts such as sales, leadership, diversity, teamwork, customer service, and conflict. Facilitates students conduct of self-assessment, networking, interviewing, and other career-development strategies. Provides students training in informative and persuasive business presentations. Recommended prerequisites: COMM 1300 and COMM 1600.
COMM 3610 - Communication, Technology, and Society
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Fall 2023 / Spring 2024
Examines how electronic media influence our communication in relationships and communities. Focuses on how we use technology to create shared meanings, express identities, and coordinate interaction, and why such efforts succeed and fail. Also focuses on political and ethical questions concerning the development of communication technology in a global society characterized by conflict and inequality. Recommended prerequisites: COMM 1210 and COMM 1600.
COMM 4300 - Senior Seminar: Rhetoric
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2021
Requires students to synthesize and demonstrate what they've learned in the major. Please refer to the specific description listed for the current semester. Each seminar will vary greatly in format and content.
COMM 4600 - Senior Seminar: Organizational Communication
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2018 / Fall 2018 / Fall 2020
Reviews current theory and research on topics such as communication and organizational decision making, organizational culture, gender relations, communication technology, and power and control in organizations. Same as COMM 5600.
COMM 5610 - Organizational Ethnography
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2019
Focuses on the historical influence of the ethnographic tradition in organizational communication studies. Reviews landmark studies of organizational culture and power/control, emphasizing issues of ethics and politics associated with the writing and reading of organizational ethnography. Reviews trends in contemporary organizing such as neoliberal globalization and the adoption of artificial intelligence, and their implications for the future of ethnography.
COMM 5720 - Readings in Communication and Technology
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2023
Survey of multidisciplinary research that examines various relationships between communication and technology. Students are encouraged to develop critical skills in perceiving assumptions and perspectives that motivate major theories in this area, and to examine how these phenomena have changed over time.
COMM 6030 - Qualitative Research Methods
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2018
Introduction to the epistemology, methodology, and representational practices associated with qualitative communication research. Fieldwork methods emphasized include participant observation, interviewing, and document/artifact analysis.
COMM 6420 - Interaction Analysis
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2020
Educates students in one of a selected set of methodological specializations used in the study of human interaction. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours on different topics.
ORGL 5415 - Organizational Culture
Primary Instructor
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Fall 2019 / Summer 2020
Focuses on theory and practice associated with the successful development of organizational culture. Topics covered include symbolic artifacts, beliefs, and assumptions that distinguish organizational, corporate, and occupational/professional identities. Related coverage of the communication practices (e.g., performance, ritual, etc.) through which the cultural elements of organizing are created, maintained and transformed. Special emphasis placed on issues of cultural leadership, cultural control, and cultural change in the contexts of contemporary globalization and technological innovation.
PACS 3800 - Security Studies
Primary Instructor
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Spring 2018 / Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2021 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2024
Provides an introduction to the academic field of "Security Studies". Focuses on motives, institutions and processes associated with societal defense against threats posed to cherished possessions and the pursuit of stable, autonomous and prosperous existence. Reviews related theoretical traditions associated with militarism, war and conflict. Covers key concerns of (in-)security in post 9/11 global society, including surveillance, terrorism, genocide and insurgency. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Similar to PSCI 3123.
