Portrait of Kristan Poirot
  • Executive Associate Head
  • Associate Professor

Biography

Introduction

My research engages the concerns of contemporary critical theorists, rhetoricians, and historians by examining the circulation of sex, gender, and race identifications in the U.S. contexts that span from the nineteenth century onward. I pay particular attention to social movement discourse and public memories about resistance.

Bio

Kristan Poirot is an Associate Professor in Communication, and affiliated faculty member of the Africana Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies programs. She teaches courses on Black freedom movements, feminist history and theory, and social movements and rhetoric. Her research is interdisciplinary in scope and equally invested in rhetorical studies and feminist/gender studies. She engages the concerns of contemporary critical theorists, rhetoricians, and historians by examining the circulation of sex, gender, and race identifications in U.S. contexts that span from the nineteenth century onward. In her work, Poirot examines number of different rhetorical sites to better understand the situatedness of these identifications. She pays particular attention to social movement rhetorics and public memories about resistance and white heteronormative male supremacy.  Her focus on place and context enables a feminist intervention that grapples with both the conceptual and material entailments of sex, gender, and racial disparity.  She is the author of one book, A Question of Sex: Feminism, Rhetoric, and Differences That Matter (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014) and a number of articles published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and Women’s Studies in Communication.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate Courses:

  • COMM 203: Public Speaking
  • COMM 301: Rhetoric of Western Thought
  • COMM 407: Gender, Race and Media
  • COMM/WGST 420: Gender and Communication
  • COMM/AFST 425: Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement
  • WGST 200: Introduction to Women’s & Gender Studies
  • WGST 401: Feminist Theory
  • WGST/ENGL 481: Women’s Rhetoric

Graduate Courses:

  • COMM 601: Foundations in Communication Inquiry
  • COMM 645: Rhetorical & Textual Methods
  • COMM/AFST 652: Rhetoric of Black Freedom Movements
  • COMM 653: Rhetoric & Public Culture
  • WSGT 680: Theories of Gender
  • WGST 689: Sex & Feminism

Research Interests

  • Humanities & Critical/Cultural Studies
  • Rhetoric and Public Affairs

Selected Publications