Dan DeGooyer, Jr.

Assistant Professor of English
B.S. University of Utah, M.A. University of Montana, Ph.D. University of Iowa

My background is in communication studies with emphases in critical cultural approaches to interpersonal, small group, organizational, and rhetorical communication. I am particularly interested in two aspects of our everyday communication. First is that of power or how control is negotiated through talk. The second area is the aesthetics of communication. Aesthetics may be engaged and explored through perception and sensory experience (i.e., smelling, tasting, touching, seeing, hearing); with an interest in subject object relations (such as the energy between the self and the Other); with specific attention directed toward beauty (i.e., of gorgeousness) and the ugly (e.g., monsterliness); with experiencing awe through the sublime and horror through the abject; with play and therefore pleasure; and with questions about style and the importance of form. Throughout all these distinctions aesthetics is (in)formed by issues of politics and ethics. I look at issues of power and aesthetics across interpersonal, small group, and organizational contexts.

In one of my research projects I playfully experiment with rules using rhetorical theory to create a typology for problem solving. In another project I examine how identities are created and constrained through talk, especially the talk occurring in meetings. I focus on a series of group meetings over three months in which the organization is undertaking a self-review that happens once every eight years. The talk focuses on making arguments for resources when resources are scarce and how such talk creates particular identities.

I draw on my communication studies background in teaching courses in Persuasive Strategies and Rhetorical Traditions, Critical Approaches to Organizational Communication, and The Aesthetics of Communication.