Jane Sutton
Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Coordinator of CAS baccalaureate degree
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Contact:
1031 Edgecomb Avenue
York, PA 17403
Office Phone: 717-771-4160
jss@psu.edu
Educational History:
Ph.D., 1984 University of Colorado, Boulder, Communication
Research Interests:

Rhetorical histories and theories; philosophy and rhetoric; feminisms, women, and public speaking in the United States.

Currently, I focus on rhetorical theory, attending especially to how it configures women's authority in the United States from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. In particular, I feature rhetoric as a house to explore the theoretical foundation of rhetoric, accepting the given structure of ancient rhetoric as being hospitable to women and showing all the gains women have made. My research contests that showing how those gains are illusions.

Recent Major Publications:

The House of My Sojourn: Rhetoric, Women, and the Question of Authority. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010, in press.

"Weaving and Unweaving Public Woman: The Case of Telephone Operators at the Turn of the Twentieth Century." In Oppositional Discourses and Democracies. Michael Huspek (Ed.) New York: Routledge, 118-131, 2110.

"A Communicology of the Oval Office as Figural Rhetoric: Women, the Presidency, and a Politics of the Body." In Communicology: The New Science of Embodied Discourse. Isaac E. Catt and Deborah Eicher-Catt, (Eds.), Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009.

"Figuring Reconciliation: Dancing With the Enemy," Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, 25.2 (2007), 291-311.

"Figuring Forth the Gift of Janice Hocker Rushing," Southern Communication Journal, 71 (2006), 127-135.

"Intersections: Woman, Rhetoric, and Domination," The American Journal of Semiotics, 22 (2006), 129-146.

"Weaving and Unweaving Public Woman: Contingencies of Oppositional Discourse," Atlantic Journal of Communication, 14 (2006), 141-155.

"Configurations: Encountering Ancient Athenian Spaces of Rhetoric, Democracy, and Woman," Journal of International Women's Studies, 7 (2005), 36-52.

"Hippias of Elis." In Classical Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources. Michelle Ballif and Michael G. Moran (Eds.), Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Company, Inc., 199-203, 2005.

"Figuring Rhetoric: From Antistrophe to Apostrophe through Catastrophe," Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 32:4 (2002), 29-49.

"On the Structure of Rhetoric in Aristotle: The Space of Speech, Self and Other." In The Philosophy of Communication Vol. II. Konstantine Boudouris and Takis Poulahos (Eds.), International Center for Greek Philosophy and Culture, Athens, Greece: Ionia Publications, 204-212, 2002.

"Kairos." In Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, Thomas O. Sloane and Thomas Farrell, (Ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 413-417, 2001.

Translated and Reprinted Articles (selected):

"The Taming of the Polos/Polis: Rhetoric As an Achievement Without Woman," 57 (1992), 97-119. Reprinted in "The Taming of the Polos/Polis: Rhetoric as an Achievement Without Woman." In Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader. John Louis Lucaites, Celeste Michelle Condit, and Sally Caudill (Ed.), New York: Guilford Press, 101-126, 1999.

"The Death of Rhetoric and its Rebirth in Philosophy," Rhetorica, 4 (1986), 203-26. Translated by Stina Hansson as "Retorikens död-och dess pånyttfödelse," Tidskrift för Littaturvetenskap, 3 (1987), 8-19.

Professional Service (selected) and Associations:
  • Center for Democratic Communication, Penn State, 2008
  • Commission for Women, Penn State, 2002
  • Scholar, International Communicology Institute, 2000
  • President, American Society for the History of Rhetoric, 1990-1991
  • Executive Council Membership Committee, Eastern Communication Association, 1985
  • Chair , Rhetoric and Public Address Division, Speech Communication Association of Pennsylvania, 1987-88
  • Executive Committee of the Rhetoric and Public Address Interest Council, Speech Communication Association of Pennsylvania, 1986-1989
Grants and Awards (selected)
  • Research Development Grant, Commonwealth College, Penn State, 2005, 1993, 1991, 1990
  • Teaching Development Grant, Commonwealth College, Penn State, 2005, 2004, 2002
  • Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, College of the Liberal Arts, Penn State, 1995
  • Best Article Award, Second Place, Southern Communication Journal, Vols. 56-58, 1993

Last updated October 6, 2009