J. Robert Cox

Professor
Rhetorical Studies

Current Research: “Social Movement Rhetoric: Public Discourse, Counterpublics, and Resistance,” in Handbook on Rhetoric (with C. Foust) (SAGE Pub., submitted);“Golden Tropes and Democratic Betrayals: Prospects for the Environment and Environmental Justice in Neoliberal “Free Trade” Agreements,” in Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement (MIT Press, forthcoming, 2007);  “Nature’s ‘Crisis Disciplines’: Does Environmental Communication Have an Ethical Duty?” in Environmental Communication Yearbook, 4th ed. (forthcoming, 2007) 

Recent Publications: Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere (SAGE Pub., 2006); “The (Re)Making of the ‘Environmental President’: Clinton/Gore and the Rhetoric of U.S. Environmental Politics, 1992-1996,” in T. R. Peterson (Ed.), Green Talk in the White House: The Rhetorical Presidency Encounters Ecology. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2004, pp. 157-180; "Free trade" and the eclipse of civil society:  Barriers to transparency and public participation in NAFTA and the Free Trade Area of the Americas.  In Depoe, S. P., Delicath, J. W., & Aepli, M. F. (Eds.), Communication and public participation in environmental decision making (pp. 201-19). Albany: SUNY Press, 2004;  “Critical ‘Publicity’ and the Rhetorical Display of
‘Publicness’ in Global Institutions.” Eds. Gerald Hauser. Rhetorical   Democracy: Discursive Practices of Civic Engagement. Mahwah,  NJ: Lawrence  Erlbaum, 2003'; “The Irreparable,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Ed. Thomas O. Sloane.  Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 406-409.

Courses Regularly Taught: Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere; Rhetoric and Social Theory; Contemporary Rhetorical Criticism; Seminar in History of Rhetoric

Future/Projected Courses: Discourses of Environmentalism: Apocalypse, Accomodation, and the Social Construction of "Nature"

Areas of Specialization: Principal research and teaching areas include rhetorical theory, the rhetoric of social movements (emphasis on environmental discourse); and research on the rhetorical and political agency of low income citizens and communities of color as they participate environmental and social justice decisions.

Honors: American Communication Association’s 2001 Outstanding Service to the Public Award; Chapman Family Fellowship, Institute for Arts and Humanities, UNC-CH; Featured Guest, William Friday’s “North Carolina People,” UNC TV; “Tar Heel of the Week,” The News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.); Tanner Award (UNC-CH), “In recognition of Excellence in
Inspirational Teaching of Undergraduates Students”; “Favorite Faculty” award (Senior class, UNC-CH); Katherine Kennedy Carmichael Award, (Order of the Grail/ Valkyries), “Outstanding service to women students”; “Best Monograph” award (American Forensic Association): “The Die Is Cast: Topical and Ontological Dimensions of the Locus of the Irreparable,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 68 (1982).

Professional Service: Associate Editor, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Quarterly Journal of Speech Environmental Communication Yearbook, Argumentation and Advocacy

Current/Recent Work with Graduate Students: Christina Foust, "Transgressing Subjects, Rhetorical Mediation and the Multitude: Towards a Nietzschean Theory of Resistance in Neo-liberal Globalization" (2005 Gerald R. Miller NCA Dissertation Award); Phaedra Pezzullo, "The Politics of 'Presence': Toxic Tours, Environmental Justice, and Embodied Rhetorics of Resistance" (2002)

Ph.D. students in progress: Jonathan Riehl (Rhetoric of the Federalist Society); and in the Ecology Curriculum: Gabriel Cumming (Local community environmental discourses and land management); Andrew George (conservation management and public participation provisions in federal regulaions) 

Community Service: President, Board of Directors, Sierra Club, San Francisco (2000-2001; 1994-96), and Director, Sierra Club (1993-1999; 2000-2006)