Tags: Core Faculty

Belinda joined the department in fall 2011 to teach and research in the general areas of rhetorical criticism, public address, and women's rights rhetoric. She currently serves as the department's Graduate Coordinator. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication and a Women's Studies Certificate from the University of Maryland. Her research and teaching interests are grounded in the public address tradition and are guided by questions regarding gender,…

Dr. Bjørn Stillion Southard is an Associate Professor and Director of Debate in Communication Studies. He holds a PhD and MA from the University of Maryland. Bjørn is interested in early U.S. Public Address, particularly in discourses concerning race and law. His first book, Peculiar Rhetoric: Slavery, Freedom, and the African Colonization Movement (University Press of Mississippi, 2019), explored the tenuous middle ground constructed and…

Roger Stahl (PhD, Penn State University) is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Georgia.  He studies rhetoric, media, and culture, but in large part, his work has focused on understanding propaganda and public relations as they relate to state violence, conflict, and security.  His most recent book, Through the Crosshairs: War, Visual Culture, and the Weaponized Gaze (Rutgers UP, 2018), traces the…

Dr. Schaller joined the department in 2005. She teaches interpersonal communication, Honors interpersonal communication, business and professional communication, and small group communication.  Her small group students, working in teams, have raised thousands of dollars and performed hundreds of hours of service for local charitable organizations.  She earned her M.S. degree at Illinois State University and her Ph.D. in…

Christin E. Huggins (Ph.D., University of Georgia) received her MA from UGA and her BA in Communication Studies from Samford University. Her teaching focuses on engaging students using active learning strategies so that students are invested in their own learning. Dr. Huggins teaches undergraduate courses in interpersonal communication, nonverbal communication in close relationships, empirical research methods, and interpersonal…

Dr. Happe, Professor of Communication Studies and Women's and Gender Studies, is a rhetorical theorist and critic working at the intersection of Marxism, feminism, science studies, and biopolitics. Her scholarship has appeared in Theory and Event, The Quarterly Journal of Speech, New Genetics and Society, Philosophy and Rhetoric, and other venues.  Her book, The Material Gene: Gender, Race, and Heredity After the Human…

After spending a good number of years studying literature and literary theory, Professor Barbara Biesecker changed her course of study and went to the University of Pittsburgh to earn a doctoral degree in rhetorical studies.  She completed the Ph.D. in 1989, was a Fellow of the School of Criticism and Theory, accepted a position at the University of Iowa in 1990, and taught undergraduate and graduate courses there until she joined the…