September 16-17, 2016

Raleigh, North Carolina

Bios

Dr. Victoria J. Gallagher

As a full Professor in the Department of Communication, Dr. Gallagher teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in visual and material rhetoric, rhetorical theory and criticism, communication ethics, and organizational communication. Dr. Gallagher's primary area of publication and scholarship is rhetorical criticism, particularly of civil rights-related discourse, commemorative sites (museums and memorials), visual and material culture, and public art. She is the principle investigator of the Virtual Martin Luther King project, funded and supported by the North Carolina Humanities Council, the college research office, and the NC State Libraries.  In addition, she has conducted research on gender and communication in engineering work teams (supported by an external grant from The Engineering Information Foundation), communication ethics, and communication education. Gallagher is the co-editor of Communicative Cities in the 21st Century and authored the introduction and an additional chapter in that collection.  She has published articles in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Western Journal of Communication, Southern Communication Journal, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Journal of College Admission, and the Journal of Engineering Education, as well as in edited book collections. She has presented over 50 conference papers, been an invited respondent for numerous panels and served on several roundtable panels at national and regional conferences. Her co-authored article on the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Aubrey Fisher Journal Article Award, Runner-Up, from the Western States Communication Association.  In May 2013 she was awarded the Robert M. Entman award for Excellence in Communication Research from NC State's Department of Communication.

Dr. Jason Miller

Dr. Jason Miller’s research interests include twentieth-century American Poetry, American Literature, literary theory, and pedagogy. Professor Miller serves the department as Associate Head and Director of Undergraduate Studies.

His book Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric traces Martin Luther King, Jr.'s use of Langston Hughes's poetry in his sermons and speeches from 1956-1968.  This work is also the subject of a documentary film project currently being made in partnership with the Southern Documentary Fund.  The film project is highlighted as part of Experiencing King at NC State in an event headlined by actor Danny Glover: Experiencing King

His King's First Dream project has made the first ever recording of Dr. Martin Luther's King "I Have a Dream" speech available online at kingsfirstdream.com. This speech took place in Rocky Mount, North Carolina a full eight months before King's famous speech at the March on Washington in 1963.  The project has received coverage on the CBS and ABC National Evening News, the BBC, and in USA Today.  Articles have been published in Canada and Japan and even translated into Dutch and Italian.  Dr. Miller was also interviewed on NPR and live on CNN.

Dr. Keon Pettiway

As an Assistant Professor at Eastern Michigan University in the department of Communication. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media from North Carolina State University, and he holds a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the School of Art and Design at East Carolina University. Prior to joining academia, Pettiway worked as a designer and consultant for a number of organizations and institutions, including one of the largest financial services holding companies in the U.S. He has used these experiences to contribute design, marketing, and community outreach expertise for digital humanities projects such the Virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. project (Victoria Gallagher, P.I.) and Victoria’s Lost Pavilion (Paul Fyfe, P.I.). Dr. Pettiway’s primary area of research and teaching is rhetorics of race and postcolonial identity in visual and design culture. His current work focuses on rhetorical theory and criticism of black internationalism and Pan-Africanism following early African independence and liberation movements. Pettiway’s secondary area of scholarship centers on developing culturally relevant health and environmental communication campaigns. His work has been published in Across the Disciplines, Media-N Journal of the New Media Caucus, and Communication and Global Engagement Across Cultural Boundaries.