Faculty Profile

Don Waisanen, PhD

Instructor, Communication Department

Email: dwaisane@callutheran.edu
Office: SBET 115

Profile

Dr. Waisanen received his PhD in Communication from the University of Southern California, where he was a Walter Fisher Fellow. He has published work on rhetoric and public affairs (the public sphere and civil society), deliberative democracy in the information age, political comedy, civil-religious controversies, and communication education. An eclectic at heart, he is currently completing a book on political conversion narratives in the last half century of American politics, and has some new articles coming out in various journals and edited volumes on the deliberative dimensions of social networking sites, and the rhetoric of irony, parody, and satire in public discourse. Dr. Waisanen was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs, and has worked in radio and television. His other experiences include speechwriting, political campaign coordination, and teaching courses in public speaking, debate, persuasion, and communication theory and criticism. He is a frequent contributor to Thick Culture, a blog formed by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, which is found at http://contexts.org/thickculture/, and has long enjoyed and been informed in his professional work by hobbies in acting and improv.

Education

PhD, University of Southern California

Expertise

Rhetoric and public affairs, political entertainment, social movements and civil society, deliberative democracy in the information age, religious communication, and communication education.



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