BOOKS & SPECIAL ISSUES
ACADEMIC RESEARCH
At a glance, my research may appear somewhat unwieldy. I’ve published widely across a number of areas, including political rhetoric and theory, rhetorical history, institutional theory, democratic deliberation, demagoguery, Nazism and fascism, the history of higher education, writing theory and pedagogy, writing program administration, graduate student mentorship, historiography, and more. My first book was about the history of writing instruction in higher education. My current book project is about Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric.
What ties these varied subjects together is an abiding curiosity in how people—including people we love to hate, like Nazis—use language and symbols to make decisions together. I’m interested in how people form beliefs, how we build and maintain groups centered on those beliefs, how we make laws and invent cultures, how we teach our beliefs to others, and how we change our minds—all with the basic tools of language and symbols. So while my research is diverse, it orbits around my desire to understand language and symbols better.
POPULAR PRESS
Most of my research and writing is for academic audiences, but I’m always looking for opportunities to connect with a wide range of people. As such, I’ve published in the popular press and presented my research to civic and community groups such as the League of Women Voters and the Rotary Club. My work has appeared in more than a dozen public outlets, including Common Dreams, The Washington Post, The Hill, Newsweek, and Salon.
My work has been cited by scholars, journalists, and writers in at least twenty-four countries on six continents, in at least eight languages, and in at least twenty-seven disciplines as diverse as political science, social anthropology, education, art, and theology. I’ve also been interviewed on television, radio, and in print media, and my public scholarship was cited in a 2023 RAND Corporation report on bipartisanship, and in editor-in-chief Michael Tomasky’s The New Republic blog in 2023.
Finally, during the pandemic, I launched a series of graphic designs—many, but not all, of them focused on Rhetoric & Writing—under the name Dr. Skinnell’s Extravaganza of Rhetoric Sticklies.
publications & Speaking engagements
My current projects are accessible on my home page.
For more information about my academic research, including links and citations, please see my Curriculum Vita.
For more information about my popular writing and speaking, visit my “Public Scholarship” page.
Click here for Dr. Skinnell’s Extravaganza of Rhetoric Sticklies.
Dr. Ryan Skinnell 