VPA faculty Demo, Vivian honored by National Communication Association

VPA faculty Demo, Vivian honored by National Communication AssociationDecember 03, 2008Erica Blustesblust@syr.edu

Anne Demo and Bradford Vivian, assistant professors in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), received awards from the National Communication Association (NCA) at the organization’s 94th annual convention in San Diego Nov. 20-24.

Demo received one of the NCA’s Golden Anniversary Monograph Awards, which are presented to the most outstanding scholarly monographs published during the previous calendar year. Her winning article, “The Afterimage: Immigration Policy after Elian,” was published in the journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs and contributes to the communication discipline’s literature on media, visuality and memory.

Vivian received the Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award, which is given to foster and promote philosophical, historical or critical scholarship in rhetoric and public discourse. The award will support his latest project, an ambitious effort to bring theories of public memory and forgetting to bear on the controversy over a World Trade Center memorial.

“It is remarkable for a single department to win two such awards in the same year,” says Kendall Phillips, associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies. “We are honored to have our faculty so recognized.”

Demo, who also serves as a faculty member in VPA’s School of Art and Design and Department of Transmedia, has training in rhetoric and has an interdisciplinary background in visual culture and gender studies. Her primary area of research has focused on the visual rhetoric of contemporary immigration policy and politics. Her current book project, “Image Politics & Immigration Policy,” examines the role that visual argument plays in promoting contemporary immigration policy and forming public opinion about immigration. She holds a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University.

Vivian, who also holds a Ph.D. from Penn State, conducts research in rhetorical theory and criticism. He is the author of “Being Made Strange: Rhetoric Beyond Representation” (SUNY Press, 2004). His current research includes two projects: one on the rhetoric of “public forgetting” and one on models of freedom and citizenship in the history of rhetorical theory.

Founded in 1914, the NCA is the oldest and largest national organization promoting effective and ethical communication. The association supports the communication research, teaching, public service and practice of a diverse community of scholars, educators, administrators, students, practitioners and publics. The NCA is a nonprofit organization of more than 7,700 members who work and reside in every U.S. state and more than 20 foreign countries. For more information, visit http://www.natcom.org.

VPA is committed to the education of cultural leaders who will engage and inspire audiences through performance, visual art, design, scholarship and commentary. The college provides the tools for self-discovery and risk-taking in an environment that thrives on critical thought and action. Learn more at http://vpa.syr.edu.