Academics
Meet the Faculty

David G. Holmes
Professor of English
Blanche E. Seaver Professor in Humanities
Division: Humanities/Teacher Education Division
Office: Cultural Arts Center (CAC) 312
Phone: (310) 506-4234
E-mail: david.holmes@pepperdine.edu
- Ph.D., University of Southern California
- MA, University of Southern California
- MA, California State University
- BA, Oklahoma Christian University
Courses:
- Harlem Renaissance
- Advanced Composition
- Language Theory
- Civil Rights Rhetoric
- Theories of Religious Rhetoric
- Composition Theory
Key Awards/Affiliations:
- Elected Member, Executive Committee Conference on College Composition and Communication
- Elected Member, College Section Nominating Committee, National Council of Teachers of English
- Rhetoric Society of America
- Lilly Fellowship, "Spirituality and Social Justice: Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement," Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, June 2001
- Seaver Research Fellow in Composition Rhetoric, Pepperdine University, 1999-2000
- College Language Association
- Scholars for the Dream Award, Conference on College Composition and Communication, March 1995
- National Council of Teachers of English
- International Society for the History of Rhetoric
Academic Interests:
- African American Preaching
- Civil Rights Movement Rhetoric
- Epistemologies and Rhetorics of Racism
- Harlem Renaissance
- Theories of Ethos
Selected Works:
- Visiting Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, Arizona State University, Tempe, January to May 2008.
Courses Taught:
-Graduate Seminar: "Eyes Beyond the Prize: the Rhetorics, Politics, and Poetics of the Civil Rights Movement."
-Undergraduate Course: Caribbean Literature - Chair, "Hermeneutics: Decoding Religious Ideologies through Prophetic Politics, Sophistic Ethics and Critical Race Theory." Rhetoric Society of America, Seattle, Washington, May 2008.
- "Reclaiming the Word: Fred Shuttlesworth and the Rhetoric of Precept Hermeneutics." Rhetoric Society of America, Seattle, Washington, May 2008.
- Chair, Super Session on "African American Rhetoric." Rhetoric Society of America, Seattle, Washington, May 2008.
- "Mediating Messages from Moses and the Messiah: Ralph Abernathy's Ethos and the Nommo of Spoken Literacy." Conference on College Composition and Communication, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 2008.
- (Re) Dressing the KKK: Fred Shuttlesworth's Precept Hermeneutic and the Rhetoric of African American Prophetic Patriotism. Invited Lecture, Arizona State University, March 26, 2008.
- Recasting the Kingdom, Reclaiming the Word: Race, Religion and the Democratic Paradoxes of African American Rhetorical Sovereignty, Invited Lecture, Florida State University, October 22, 2007.
- Faith Comes by Hearing: Recovering the Rhetoric of the Birmingham Civil Rights Mass Meetings. Invited Lecture, Birmingham Public Library Archives, Birmingham, Alabama, August 8, 2007.
- The Civil Rights Movement According to Crash: Complicating the Pedagogy of Integration. College English, Volume 69, Number 4 (March 2007) :314-321.
- Affirmative Reaction: Kennedy, Nixon, King and the Evolution of Color Blind Rhetoric. Rhetoric Review, Volume 26, Number 1 (January 2007) :25-41.
- Cross Racial Voicing: Carl Van Vechten's Imagination and the Search for an African American Ethos. College English, Volume 68, Number 3 (January 2006): 291-307.
- Say What?: Rediscovering Hugh Blair and the Racialization of Language, Culture, and Pedagogy in Eighteenth-Century Rhetoric. Calling Cards: Theory and Practice in the Study of Race, Gender, and Culture. State University of New York Press, March 2005.
- Revisiting Racialized Voice, February 2004 by Southern Illinois University Press.
- Color Me Author. Journal of Teaching Writing, 19.1-2 (2001): 1-13.
- "The Fragmented Whole: Ralph Ellison, Kenneth Burke, and the Cultural Literacy Debate." College Language Association Journal, Volume XLIII, Number 3 (March 2000).
- "Citizens of Color and for Color: Teaching Whiteness for Cross-Racial Democracy." National Council of Teachers of English, Nashville, Tennessee, November, 2006.
- Chair, African American Studies Section. Christian Scholars Conference, Rochester Hills, Michigan, June 2006.
- Chair, "Rhetorical and Political Bodies." Rhetoric Society of America Conference, Memphis, Tennessee, May, 2006.
- Showing and Telling: The Alabama Civil Rights Movement and the Pedagogy of Place. Association of Integrated Studies Conference, Charlotte, North Carolina, October 15, 2004.