Back to Directory

Philip D. Perdue, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of English and Communication Studies
English

Education

Ph.D., Rhetoric, Indiana University
M.A., Communication and Culture, Indiana University
B.A., Interdisciplinary Concentration, Fairhaven College

Research or Areas of Specialty

My research focuses on the way communication influences what people feel, think, and do. My training specializes in rhetorical criticism, which is a method for explaining how messages persuade audiences. The most developed area of my research focuses on the rhetoric of visual communication, which includes pictorial messaging in digital animation, book illustration, and photojournalism, where I examine how style, presentation, and symbolism persuade audiences to adopt religious and political points of view. I draw from these specific areas of research in offering courses that teach students how they can understand and interpret a wide variety of messages. They learn how to merge their skill in language and verbal communication with visual and digital modes of discourse, and we aim to do all of this from a perspective of rhetorical, ethical, and civic awareness.

Classes at PC

  • COMM 2100 Introduction to Communication Studies
  • COMM 2200 Communicating Citizenship
  • COMM 3110 Visual Rhetoric
  • COMM 3120 Word and Image
  • COMM 3210 Digital Rhetoric
  • COMM 3220 Persuasive Podcasting
  • COMM 3320 Sports Communication
  • COMM 3410 Advocacy and Public Influence
  • COMM 3420 Rhetoric and Religion
  • ENGL 1001 Introduction to Composition

Organizations

  • National Communication Association
  • Southern States Communication Association
  • Rhetoric Society of America

Publications

Perdue, Philip. “Visually Based Rhetorical History: The Sola Videre Principle in Christian Nationalist Videos.” In Reframing Rhetorical History: Cases, Theories, and Methodologies, edited by Kathleen J. Turner and Jason Edward Black, University Alabama Press, 2022, pp. 92–110.

Perdue, Philip. “Spiritual Modalities: Prayer as Rhetoric and Performance.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, vol. 17, no. 3, Fall 2014, pp. 561–65.

Reading The Pictures. Contributing Writer, Editor-at-Large, 2012 – 2023.