Ron Greene

he/his/him

[email protected]

Communication Studies

225 Ford Hall

224 Church St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Curriculum Vitae

Collegiate Affiliation

Communication Studies

Writing Studies

Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature

American Studies

Ronald Walter Greene (Ron Greene) is a former Chair of the CLA Assembly (2023-2024), Chair of the Department of Communication Studies (2013-2021), Chair of CLA's Council of Chairs (2016) and Co-Chair of CLAs Tenure and Promotion Committee (2024).

His research and teaching explores the ways institutions regulate and advocate communication to improve democratic decision making. He is particularly concerned with the material modalities of rhetorical practice (debate, discussion, and persuasion) guiding institutional judgments in political, educational, and economic contexts. He has been awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award from the The Critical and Cultural Studies Division of the National Communication Association (NCA) and the Charles Woolbert Research Award from the National Communication Association. The Critical Cultural Studies Division of NCA and the American Forensic Association have also recognized his research to rhetorical and argumentation theory with article of the year awards.

He is the author of Malthusian Worlds: US Leadership and the Governing of the Population Crisis (Westview 1999, Ebook Routledge 2019, translated into Farsi by Mehdi Rezaei and Latif Partovi. Tehran: National Institute for Population Research, 2024). He is currently editing Arguing Democracy: Selected Papers from the 22nd NCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation and has published articles in such journals as: Cultural Studies, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Argumentation and Advocacy, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, The Proceedings of the AFA/NCA Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and Cultural Critique. His website provides a more comprehensive account of his publications.

Dr. Greene is one of the founding organizers and former Chair of the Critical and Cultural Studies Division of the National Communication Association (NCA) and has served in all the leadership roles of the Critical and Cultural Studies Division and the Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division of NCA. He also served on Executive Board of the Rhetorical Society of America. He actively reviews work for disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals in rhetorical studies, cultural studies, and the critical humanities.

Educational Background & Specialties

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Educational Background

BA: Philosophy, University of South Carolina, 1986
MA: Speech Communication: Rhetoric and Political Communication, Louisiana State University, 1988
Ph.D.: Speech Communication: Rhetoric and Cultural Studies, University of Illinois, 1995

Specialties

Political Communication; Debates; Civic Education
Philosophy of Communication
Rhetorical Theory
Argumentation Studies
Cultural Studies

Publications

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Publications

(March 2025). Rhetorical Studies 1979: Then and Now. Better Stories: Mapping Cultural Studies with Lawrence Grossberg.
Hicks, D. & Greene, R.W. (2022). Americas' conviction: Arguing democracy in the affective episteme. Argumentation and Advocacy, 58.
(2021). (Counter)mapping the place and time of local argument. Local Theories of Argument, 6-16.
Malthusian Worlds: US Leadership and the Governing of the Population Crisis. Westview, Greene, Ron, 1999.
Y Movies: Film and the Modernization of Pastoral Power: Taylor and Francis, Greene, Ron, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2, 19-36, 2005.
John Dewey's Eloquent Citizen: Communication, Judgment and Postmdoern Capitalism: Argumentation and Advocacy, Greene, Ron, 2003.
Lost Convictions: Debating Both Sides and the Ethical Self-Fashioning of Liberal Citizens: Darrin Hicks, Routledge, Greene, Ron, Cultural Studies, 19, 101-127, 2005.
Managed Convictions; Debate and the Limits of Electoral Politics. Darrin Hicks, NCA: Taylor and Francis, Greene, Ron, 2015.
Struggle for the Commons: Communicative Labor, Control Economics, and the Rhetorical Marketplace: Sara Holiday Nelson, Peter Lang, Greene, Ron, Communication/Economy: Value, Meaning, Agency in the 21st Century, 259-284, 2014.
From the Arab Spring, to Athens, From Occupy Wall Street to Moscow: Regional Accents and the Rhetorical Cartography of Power: Kevin Kuswa, Greene, Ron, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 42, 271-288, 2012.
Pastoral Exhibition: THE YMCA Motion Picture Bureau and the Transition to 16MM: H. Wasson and C. Acland (eds), Duke University Press, Greene, Ron, Useful Cinema: Expanding the Contexts of Film Culture, 205-229, 2011.
(2020). A materialist perspective on argument networks as contentious politics. Networked Argument, 38-44.

Activities

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Activities

Professional

Founding Comittee and Former Chair: Critical and Cultural Studies Division, National Communication Association. 1998 - 2002
Executive Board: Rhetoric Society of America. 2016 - 2019
Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division NCA: Past Chair, Chair, Vice Chair. 2007 - 2011

Outreach

Executive Committee: Minnesota Urban Debate League. 2014 - present

Research

Material Rhetorics: Dr. Greene is currently pursuing his critical and theoretical interest in material rhetorics with research in the following areas: Debate as a cultural technology of democratic self fashioning, US Presidential efforts to regulate and enforce bans against the use of chemical weapons, tracing the value of "soft skills" as a mode of communicative/affective labor, diagramming networks of global social movements, and the biopolitics embedded in population policy. 1998 - present

Awards

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Awards

Daniel Roher Best Article Award in Argumentation, 1999
Best Article of the Year, Critical and Cultural Studies Division, 2004 - 2005
Distinguished Scholar Award, Critical and Cultural Studies Division, National Communication Association, 2012
Charles H. Woolbert Award for Research of Exceptional Originality and Influence, National Communication Association , 2013
President's Distinguished Faculty Mentor Program, 2007 - 2008
CLA Outstanding Service Award, 2025, Outstanding Service Awards are presented annually by the College of Liberal Arts to recognize and reward outstanding service to the college by civil service, AFSCME labor represented and academic professional and administrative employees and work groups.
Central States Communication Association, Outstanding Service Award, 2020, 2020

Courses

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Courses

Materiality and Materialism in Communication
Free Speech
Communicating Terrorism
Communication Ethics
Argumentation
Social Movements
Biopolitics
Rhetorical Theory and Criticism