Professor, Communication
Office: 341 Lang, Department of Communication and Media
Phone: (319) 273-2714
Email: catherine.palczewski@uni.edu
Education: Ph.D. Northwestern University
Research Interests: Woman Suffrage, Public Argument, Gender, Argumentation, Social Protest, Political Communication, Public Memory, Visual Rhetoric
Dr. Catherine Palczewski’s work tends to focus on how marginalized groups rhetorically construct their messages to gain access to, and be legible in, the dominant public sphere. She has co-authored two significant books in her field, Gender in Communication (Sage, 2019) and Rhetoric in Civic Life (Strata, 2016), and is the Editor of Disturbing Argument (Routledge, 2015), a selection of essays that explore “the disturbing prevalence of violence in the contemporary world” and “the potential of argument itself, to disturb the very relations of power that enable that violence.” Cate’s Lead Essay in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, "The 1919 Prison Special: Constituting White Women's Citizenship," examines the rhetoric surrounding the cross-country train tour of 26 white women who had been jailed as a result of their protest activity for woman suffrage. This groundbreaking essay reveals how white women's citizenship was realized, while Black women (who were also co-prisoners in the same jails) were excluded from citizenship.
Other examples of Cate’s scholarship on gender, public argument, social protest, public memory, and visual rhetoric also appear in the edited volumes: Decolonizing Native American Rhetoric: Communicating Self-Determination (Peter Lang, 2018), Speech and Debate as Civic Education (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017), What Democracy Looks Like: The Rhetoric of Social Movements and Counterpublics (University of Alabama Press, 2017), The Unfinished Conversation: 100 Years of Communication Studies (Routledge, 2014), Race and Hegemonic Struggle in the United States: Pop Culture, Politics, and Protest (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2014), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies (Wiley, 2015), and numerous journals, including Quarterly Journal of Speech and Argumentation and Advocacy.
Cate has delivered the following keynote addresses or featured lectures: "Argument in an Off Key" at the 2001 NCA/AFA Biennial Conference on Argumentation; “Parades, Pickets, and Protest: Woman Suffrage Advocacy, 1913-1919" at James Madison University and Randolph-Macon College; “Body Politics: Sex, Gender, and Political Advocacy" as the 2015 Constitution Day lecture at Florida Atlantic University; "Bodies that Argue at the 2014 NCA Institute for Faculty Development and the 2015 DePauw University Undergraduate Honors Conference; “The Body Argument of NWP’s Prison Special: Vulnerable Bodies and the Appeal to Civic Obligation" at the 2014 Biennial Wake Forest University Argumentation Conference; “Taming Women's Embodied Argument: The Transgressive Potential of Suffrage Advocates’ Body Argument and Social Responses of Recuperation” at the 2012 Public Address Conference; "Gendered Advocacy" at the 2011 Women's Debate Institute; and many others.
Cate has also received numerous teaching, research and service awards, including: the 2019 Graduate Faculty Teaching Award, the 2018 National Debate Tournament Keele Service Award, the 2010 Francine Merritt Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Lives of Women in Communication, the 2009 Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, the 2008 UNI College of Humanities and Fine Arts Faculty Excellence Award, the 2004 George Ziegelmueller Outstanding Debate Educator Award, and the 2016 and 2002 Rohrer Award for the Outstanding Publication in Argumentation.
Serving as Director of Debate from 1994-2009, Cate has a notable background as a college debater for Northwestern University. She was a member of the 1987 U.S. Policy Debate team, and in 1999 served as coach of that team, participating in the Committee on International Discussion and Debate tour of Japan. She has also been an active member of the NCA/AFA Biennial Conference on Argumentation, serving as director in 2013 and currently as Treasurer and Steering Committee Member; she is also an Emeritus Board Member and Curriculum Committee member of the Women’s Debate Institute, and serves on the editorial boards of: Argumentation & Advocacy, Women’s Studies in Communication, Quarterly Journal of Speech, and Western Journal of Communication.
Cate’s teaching interests include gender, argumentation, social protest, political communication, public memory, and visual rhetoric. She regularly teaches graduate seminars in critical methods, and comparative feminisms.