James Jasinski

I am a Professor of Communication Studies. I teach courses in rhetoric and media studies, including Introduction to Communication Criticism, Argument Theory, Rhetoric and the Law, Political Communication, African American Public Discourse, and Introduction to Civic Rhetoric which currently focuses on Democracy and Voting. I also teach African Americans and the Constitution through Puget Sound’s African American Studies program. I am an affiliate faculty member in the Dept. of Communication at the University of Washington, and from 2016 through 2021 I will serve as an affiliate professor in the section on rhetoric at the University of Copenhagen.

I’m best known for my 2001 book Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies (Sage). I’ve authored or co-authored over two dozen essays, monographs, and book chapters on such topics as dissociative argument in malapportionment and vote dilution cases, Martin Luther King’s (1967) Riverside Church speech against the Vietnam war, Henry Highland Garnet’s (1843) “Address to the Slaves,” and language and voice strategies in The Federalist Papers.

I edited the academic journal Rhetoric Society Quarterly from 2011-2015, I have served as an associate editor for six academic journals and have reviewed book manuscripts for numerous university presses, and I have organized multiple academic conferences in rhetorical studies.