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Academics

Meet the Faculty

Photo of Gary Selby

Gary Selby
Blanche E. Seaver Professor in Communication

Division: Communication Division
Office: Center for Communication and Business (CCB) 247
Phone: (310) 506-4930
E-mail: gary.selby@pepperdine.edu

  • PhD, Public Communication, University of Maryland, 1996
  • Master of Theology, Harding University Graduate School of Religion, 1984
  • BA, Harding University, 1980, Magna Cum Laude
Courses:
  • Communication and Leadership
  • Rhetorical Theory and Criticism
  • Persuasion, Propaganda, and Attitude Change
  • Public Speaking
  • Communication Research Methods
Key Awards/Affiliations:
  • Outstanding Dissertation Award, American Society for the History of Rhetoric, 1996
  • George Washington University Morton A. Bender Teaching Award, 1999
  • Top Paper Award, Rhetoric and Public Address Interest Group, Eastern Communication Association Annual Convention, 2001
  • Top Paper Award, Rhetoric and Public Address Division, Southern States Communication Association Annual Convention, 2003, 2005, 2006
  • National Communication Association, International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Southern States Communication Association
Academic Interests:
  • History of US Public Address
  • Rhetoric and Racial Conflict in US History
  • Rhetoric and Religion
  • Rhetoric of Protest, Social Movements
  • Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement
  • Rhetorical Theory and Criticism
Selected Works:
  • Martin Luther King and the Rhetoric of Freedom: The Exodus in America's Struggle with Civil Rights. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008.
  • "Preaching as Mimesis: The Rhetoric of the African American Sermon." In And the Word Became Flesh: Studies in History, Communication, and Scripture in Memory of Michael W. Casey. Ed. Thomas H. Olbricht and David Fleer. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009.
  • (Em)bodying the Faith: Baptism as Ritual Communication. Restoration Quarterly 48 (2006): 1-10.
  • Scoffing at the Enemy: The Burlesque Frame in the Rhetoric of Ralph David Abernathy. Southern Communication Journal 70 (2005): 134-45. (Finalist for the SCJ Rose B. Johnson Award for Outstanding Article in Vol. 70)
  • Mocking the Sacred: Frederick Douglass's 'Slaveholder's Sermon' and the Antebellum Debate over Religion and Slavery. Quarterly Journal of Speech 88 (August 2002): 326-41.
  • Framing Social Protest: The Exodus Narrative in Martin Luther King's Montgomery Bus Boycott Rhetoric. Journal of Communication and Religion, (2001): 68-93.
  • The Limits of Accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian Abolitionists. Southern Communication Journal 66 (Fall 2000): 52-66.
  • 'Blameless at His Coming': The Discursive Construction of Eschatological Reality in 1 Thessalonians. Rhetorica 17 (Fall 1999): 385-410.
  • A Rhetorical Liturgy: Ephesians 1 and the Problem of Race Relations in the Early Christian Church. Advances in the History of Rhetoric 2 (Fall 1998): 11-20.
  • Paul, the Seer: The Rhetorical Persona in 1 Corinthians 2.1-16. In The Rhetorical Analysis of Scripture; Essays from the 1995 London Conference, pp. 351-73. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.