From Sara Hayden, PAD Vice Chair:

It is my pleasure to announce the Public Address Division’s annual awards. Although there were many excellent convention submissions, three papers received particularly high scores from reviewers. The recipients of the Wrage-Baskerville Top Paper Award are Luke Winslow and Rebecca Lanier, both of Baylor University, for their essay “Thinning the Heard: COVID-19, Immunity, and the Rhetoric of Trumpian Catastrophe.” The recipient of the Robert Gunderson Top Student Paper Award is Joshua Smith of Kansas University for his essay, “Transforming Land, or, what Bears Ears National Monument Teaches Us about Rhetoric and Colonialism.” The third Top Paper Award goes to Elizabeth Gardner and Rebeca Garcia Hernandes for their paper, “Child Workers Asserting a Bolivian Childhood in the Debate of the Co?digo Nin~a, Nin~o y Adolescente.”

In addition to awarding the top papers submitted to our annual convention, each year, the Public Address Division distributes the Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award honoring Outstanding Published Scholarship in Public Address. This year, the committee chose to honor Lisa Flores for her monograph Deportable and Disposable: Public Rhetoric and the Making of the “Illegal” Immigrant. In addition, the committee congratulates Lisa M. Corrigan for her book Black Feelings: Race and Affect in the Long Sixties and Allison L. Rowland for her monograph Zoetropes and the Politics of Humanhood, both of which were named as Honorable Mentions. Thanks much to the reviewers and committee members for their hard work and congratulations to all of the award recipients! 

The agenda for this year’s meeting is now available. Click here for the agenda. Read the minutes from the 2019 PAD Business Meeting, Read the minutes from the 2020 PAD Business Meeting.

The Public Address Division of the National Communication Association solicits nominations for the 2020 Benson -Campbell Dissertation Research Award, which honors the scholarly contributions of Thomas Benson and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell by recognizing outstanding promise in doctoral research in rhetoric and public address.

A $500 award will be presented at the business meeting of the Public Address Division at the 2020 NCA convention.

Competition for the Benson-Campbell Award is open to graduate student members of the Public Address Division who have successfully defended a Ph.D. dissertation prospectus. A completed nomination packet consists of (1) a 7-10 page summary of the dissertation prospectus, (2) a statement by the nominee about the progress of the dissertation to date, and (3) a letter of support from the nominee’s dissertation advisor that certifies that the nominee has successfully defended the prospectus and provides a rationale for why the nominee should receive the award. Complete nomination packets must be submitted electronically to Carly Woods (cswoods@umd.edu) no later than Monday, September 14, 2020 in order for the nominee to be considered for the award.

Criteria for selecting the award winner include originality of the proposal; significance of the potential findings; contribution to the theory, history, or criticism of public address; and appropriateness and/or innovation of the research design and method. We recognize that the study of public address has often privileged the study of hegemonic figures, groups, and rhetorics. Therefore, we encourage scholars whose position and/or scholarship expands beyond these historical limitations to submit their work for consideration.

Carly Woods (committee chair, University of Maryland), Robin Jensen (University of Utah), and Andre Johnson (University of Memphis) comprise the 2020 selection committee for this award.

Please direct questions to Carly Woods at (cswoods@umd.edu). 

Congratulations to our two recipients of the 2019 Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award!

Celeste Condit and Belinda Stillion Southard, both of the University of Georgia, were selected as recipients of this year’s Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award for outstanding published scholarship in public address. Condit’s Angry Public Rhetorics: Global Relations and Emotion in the Wake of 9/11 (Michigan State UP) and Stillion Southard’s How to Belong: Women’s Agency in a Transnational World

(Penn State UP) both exemplify the spirit of the award. The criteria to be used in selecting the recipients include (1) the importance of the work in extending or altering our understanding of public address and/or rhetorical practice; (2) originality; (3) quality of research; (4) intellectual creativity; and (5) quality of writing.

The committee members, Rob Asen, Allison Prasch, and I found Angry Public Rhetorics to be an incredibly timely book. With a striking assessment of various “cues for anger,” the book advances interdisciplinary and rhetorical theory on affect and emotion. How to Belong, a model of elegance and care, offers a new framework for theorizing citizenship on a transnational level.

Marie Hochmuth Nichols was the 55th President of the Speech Association of America (now the National Communication Association) in 1969 and the editor of the  from 1962-1965. A recipient of the Speech Communication Association’s Distinguished Service Award, she advanced rhetorical theory and criticism while also introducing the field to Kenneth Burke and I.A. Richards.

Benson-Campbell Dissertation Research Award, 2019 Call for Nominations

The Public Address Division of NCA solicits nominations for the Benson-Campbell Dissertation Research Award, which honors the scholarly contributions of Thomas Benson and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell by recognizing outstanding promise in doctoral research in rhetoric and public address.

A $500 award will be presented at the business meeting of the Public Address Division in Baltimore.

Competition for the Benson-Campbell Award is open to graduate student members of the Public Address Division who have successfully defended a Ph.D. dissertation prospectus. A completed nomination packet consists of (1) a 7-10 page summary of the dissertation prospectus, (2) a statement by the nominee about the progress of the dissertation to date, and (3) a letter of support from the nominee’s dissertation advisor that certifies that the nominee has successfully defended the prospectus and provides a rationale for why the nominee should receive the award. Complete nomination packets must be submitted electronically to Kristen McCauliff (klmccauliff@bsu.edu) no later than September 16, 2019 in order for the nominee to be considered for the award.

Criteria for selecting the award winner include originality of the proposal; significance of the potential findings; contribution to the theory, history, or criticism of public address; and appropriateness and/or innovation of the research design and method.

Kristen McCauliff (chair), Carly Woods, and Robin Jensen comprise the 2019 committee.

Address questions to Kristen McCauliff klmccauliff@bsu.edu.

PAD Chair Lisa Flores has forwarded the agenda for the 2018 NCA Public Address Division Business Meeting. Click here for the agenda: PAD 2018 Business Meeting Agenda.

To read the PAD Chair’s Report for 2018, click NCA PAD Chair’s Report 2018. And the Nominating Committee has prepared a ballot for this year’s divisional election: click PAD Election Ballot. To read the PAC Vice-Chair’s Report for 2018, click PAD Vice-Chair’s Report 2018.

Read the minutes from the 2018 PAD Business Meeting here: NCA PAD 2018 Minutes.

PAD Chair Jennifer Mercieca has forwarded the agenda for the 2017 NCA Public Address Division Business Meeting. Click here for the agenda: Agenda NCA PAD 2017

PAD Vice Chair and Program Planner Lisa Flores has sent a list of all PAD sponsored panels and programs for the Dallas convention. Click here for the roster: 2017 PAD panels. Click here for Lisa’s vice-chair’s report.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Dallas!

Update: 2017 PAD Business Meeting minutes are available here, courtesy of PAD Secretary Maegan Parker Brooks.

Congratulations to Katherine Lind from Indiana University. Lind is the recipient of the 2017 Benson-Campbell Dissertation Research Award from the NCA Public Address Division. The award is given in support of Lind’s dissertation project entitled “The Unbearable Loss of Beings: Curating, Documenting, and Resisting Anthropogenic Extinction.”

The PAD Business Meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 18, 2:00-3:15  Sheraton, Dallas Ballroom D3 – First Floor (Conference Center), please mark your calendars and plan to attend! Nominations for PAD offices are provided by the Nominating Committee:

Nominating Committee
Blake Abbott, Towson University
Emma Bloomfield, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Matthew Bost, Whitman College
Megan Irene Fitzmaurice, University of Maryland
Kelly Jakes, Wayne State University
Jiyeon Kang, University of Iowa
Jaclyn Nolan, University of Georgia
Keon Pettiway, Eastern Michigan University
Emily Sauter, Minnesota State University
Michael Steudeman, University of Memphis

Winans-Wichelns Award Committee
Timothy Barney, University of Richmond
Nathan Stormer, University of Maine

Vice-Chair Elect
Leslie Harris, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Isaac West, Vanderbilt University

Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award Committee
Michael Lee, College of Charleston
Kristina Horn Sheeler, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
Dave Tell, University of Kansas
Robert Terrill, Indiana University

Benson-Campbell Dissertation Research Award Committee
Beth Innocenti, University of Kansas
Carly Woods, University of Maryland

NCA Nominating Committee
Jeff Bennett, Vanderbilt University
Zornitsa Keremidchieva, University of Minnesota

From the Nichols Selection Committee Chair, Lisa Keränen:

Please join me in congratulating Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, this year’s recipients of the Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Public Address:

The Public Image: Photography and Civic Spectatorship (2016, University of Chicago Press).

The book, which includes 48 arresting color plates, argues for a shift in how we understand photography and public life, revealing how it can “provide resources for democratic communication and thoughtful reflection about contemporary social problems.”

The Nichols Award Committee members, Kristan Poirot and J. David Cisneros, and I agreed with one of the book’s nominators that this volume is “beautifully produced, elegantly written, and intellectually important.” Another noted that “Just as Professor Nichols introduced the field of rhetorical studies to the work of Burke and Richards, effectively revolutionizing the study of public address, so also does The Public Image continue the important work of integrating new rhetorical conceptions of visual culture into contemporary public address studies.”

The Nichols Award recognizes individuals who have made significant scholarly contributions to the study of public address.

Marie Hochmuth Nichols was the 55th President of the Speech Association of America (now the National Communication Association) in 1969, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Speech from 1962 to 1965, and recipient of the Speech Communication Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1976. Her scholarship concentrated on rhetorical theory, as she introduced the field to Kenneth Burke and I. A. Richards, and the criticism of public address. The criteria used in selecting the award recipient include (1) the importance of the work in extending or altering our understanding of public address and/or rhetorical practice; (2) originality; (3) quality of research; (4) intellectual creativity; and (5) quality of writing.

This year’s submissions are a testament to the bright future and social salience of public address scholarship.

We hope you will be able to join us at the 2017 Public Address Business Meeting in Dallas, Texas, on Saturday, November 18 at 2:00 – 3:15, in the Sheraton Dallas Ballroom D3 (on the first floor) to celebrate this and PAD’s other awards.

Congratulations, Drs. Hariman and Lucaites, and thank you for taking the work of rhetoric to broader publics.