» Rachel Dubrofsky's first book, The Surveillance of Women on Reality Television: Watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, has been released by Rowman & Littlefield. The book is part of Rowman & Littlefield's Critical Studies in Television series, edited by Mark Andrejevic.

» Elizabeth Bell has accepted appointment as the Chair of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at USF effective August 2011.

» We are pleased to welcome two additional Postdoctoral Scholars as part of the Provost’s 2011-12 Postdoctoral Initiative in the Social Sciences and Humanities: Global Change in a Dynamic World: Past, Present, and Future. Manoucheka Celeste's work draws on African American Literary Theory, Diaspora Studies, Latin American Studies, Caribbean Studies, and Gender Studies. Her dissertation interrogates how media construct ideal citizens through an understanding of the immigrant experience and movement across boundaries in intercultural settings. David Morris received his PhD in May 2010 in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa. Most recently he has been on a fellowship at Tokyo University of the Arts, working on turning his dissertation into a book. His areas of specialization include globalization, especially East Asia, postcolonialism, and hybridity. His dissertation is an ethnographic study of the impact of the African Diaspora on Japan, specifically through the influence and reproduction of hip hop music. Karen Greiner is in her second year in the Department on the Provost’s Doctoral Initiative from 2010-11.

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Dr. Robin Clair, Professor of Communication, Purdue University will present a lecture/colloquium on “Organizational Narratives: The Stories and Structure of Our Lives” on Friday January 20th from 1:15-2:30 in CIS 3020. Professor Clair is the author of Why Work: The Philosophy and Rhetoric of Work through the Ages, Organizing Silence: A World of Possibilities, and Expressions of Ethnography: Novel Approaches to Qualitative Methods. All are invited.

Dr. Michelle Miller-Day, Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University, will present a lecture/colloquium on “Drug use, Depression, and Suicide…Oh My! Qualitative Inquiry as a Basis for Prevention Efforts” on Monday January 23rd from 1:15-2:30 in CIS 3020. Professor Miller-Day directs Penn State’s Qualitative Research Group, and she is a faculty affiliate with the Center for Human Development and Family Research. She is also the Principle Qualitative Investigator on a National Institute on Drug Abuse funded line of research. Her books include Adolescent Relationships and Drug Use (Erlbaum, 2000) and Communication among Grandmothers, Mothers, and Adult Daughters: A Qualitative Study of Women across Three Generations (Erlbaum, 2004). All are invited.

On February 20th, the department will host a visit by the writer and cultural anthropologist, Mary Catherine Bateson. Professor Bateson is the author of several books including With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, Composing a Life, and most recently, Composing A Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom (Knopf, 2010). She will be lecturing on intergenerational communication, aging, and her recent work on raising consciousness of the changing life cycle. A Professor Emerita of Anthropology and English at George Mason University, she is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College.

2012 Grazier Lecture: François Cooren.
François Cooren, professor of communication at the Université de Montréal will deliver the 2012 endowed Grazier Lecture during the annual Communication Day celebrations on April 20, 2012. Professor Cooren is immediate past President of the International Communication Association and was Editor of Communication Theory (2006-08). His most recent book is Action and Agency in Dialogue (John Benjamins, 2010). Click here for additional information about Professor Cooren, or here for a recent interview with him.