Kendall Phillips
Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies
Professor

308 Sims Hall
Syracuse, NY 13244-1230
Phillips currently serves as founding co-director for the Lender Center for Social Justice at SU, Visiting Professor at York St. John University (UK), and Honorary Fellow in the School of Art Whiti o Rehua, College of Creative Arts, at Massey University (New Zealand). He previously served as President for the Rhetoric Society of America.
View a list of Phillips’ published work, some of which is available for download. Kendall Phillips’ Curriculum Vitae [PDF 140KB]
Education
- Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University
Expertise
American film, public discourse, rhetoric, and rhetoric of popular culture
Selected Publications
- A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2018.
- Calafell, Bernadette M. & Phillips, Kendall R. “Disciplining the Devil: A Rhetorical History of Tod Browning's The Devil Doll (1936).” Critical Studies in Media Communication, 36: 1 (2018): 18-34.
- “The Safest Hands are Our Own:” Cinematic Affect, State Cruelty, and the Election of Donald J. Trump.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15 (2018): 85-89.
- “The Event of Dissension: Reconsidering the Possibility for Dissent. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 101 (2015): 60-71.
- Phillips, Kendall (2012). Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. [Finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction]
- Phillips, Kendall, & Reyes, Mitchell (2011). Global Memoryscapes: Contesting Remembrance in a Transnational Age. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press.
- Phillips, K. R. (2008). Controversial Cinema: The Films that Outraged America. Westport, CT: Praeger.
- Phillips, K. R. Ed. (2005). Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger Press.
- Phillips, K. R. Ed. (2004). Framing Public Memory. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
- Phillips, K. R. (2004). Testing Controversy: A Rhetoric of Educational Reform. Cresskill, N. J.: Hampton Press.
Awards and Honors
- 2009 Judith Greenberg Seinfeld Distinguished Fellow
- 2008 University Teacher/Scholar of the Year, Syracuse University Chancellor’s Award
- 2007 Bronze Telly Award for “Classic Movie Night,” 28th Annual Telly Awards (national award for local/regional television)
- 2005 Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award, Syracuse University Graduate School
- 2002 College Faculty Award, Syracuse University
Lectures, Panel and Workshops
- 2018 Keynote Speaker, “Frontiers of Public Memory,” First Chinese Conference on Frontiers in Rhetorical Theory, Shanghai University (China).
- 2018 Workshop Leader, “The Art of Rhetoric and Social Change, American University’s Syrian Initiative to Combat Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, Istanbul (Turkey).
- 2015 Keynote Speaker, “The Profanity of Memory,” triggering Memory Symposium, Massey University (New Zealand).
- 2015 Keynote Speaker, “The Absence of Memory,” Memory on Trial Conference, Third Ørecomm Festival, Malmö University (Sweden).