J. Robert Cox

Professor Emeritus

Rhetorical Studies

Email: rcox1@live.unc.edu
Curriculum Vitae

B.A., University of Richmond; M.A. and Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh. Rhetorical Studies. Dr. Cox’s research and teaching focus on the role of discourse in social change. His published work includes critical studies of the rhetoric of civil rights, antiwar protest, labor, and the environmental movement. Dr. Cox serves as Advisory Editor for Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, and advises environmental groups on strategy in advocacy campaigns. In addition, he served as President of the national Sierra Club in 2007-08, 2000-01, and 1994-96. Dr. Cox’s current research project, “Challenges of Scale and the Strategic in Climate Change Campaigns,” has served as the basis for recent undergraduate seminars, as well as lectures in Europe and the U.S.
Current Research:  “Challenges of Scale and the Strategic,” in Strategic Choices for Integrating Local Action into a Climate Campaign (Cambria Press, forthcoming); “Communicating Climate Change: Challenges of Scale and the Strategic,” inaugural lecture for the Center for Communication and Sustainable Social Change, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; “Complexity, New Media, and Contested Knowledge Claims,” keynote address, Conference on Media and the Environment: Between Complexity and Urgency,” European Environment Agency, Lisbon, Portugal, April 2-3, 2009.