More About Suzanne Lindsey
- B.A., Wright State University
- M.A., Louisiana State University
- Ph.D., Indiana University
Suzanne Lindsey is chair of the Communication Studies Department and an associate professor in Public Communication, which seeks to understand how humans use multiple channels and techniques to shape the perceptions of small and large audiences.
She teaches Public Speaking, Persuasion, the Rhetoric of Social Movements, Great American Oratory, Political Communication, and Theories of Public Communication.
Her undergraduate training was at Wright State University, the first school in the United States to be totally handicapped accessible. Many of her classmates were coping with crippling, disfiguring, or terminal illnesses. This experience shaped her perceptions of education (and life) forever. It was impossible to complain about a tough test when the person next to you was dying of muscular dystrophy. While at Wright State, she competed on the speech and debate team and wrote an honors thesis on Government Manipulation of the Media.
Determined to embrace a new perspective, she moved to Louisiana State University, ready to learn about the American South. A research interest in the rhetoric of social movements began to emerge, and she wrote her master?s thesis on Forms of Extremism in the Rhetoric of the Christian Right. This thesis examined the Christian Right?s efforts to get the previously apolitical evangelical audience to register to vote and participate in a political process they viewed as ungodly and unchristian. This analysis included an evaluation on how the choice of television as a primary channel of communication shaped the evangelical message and its outcomes.
Moving on to Indiana University for her doctoral work, she expanded her research in social movements. Since her master?s thesis dealt with a contemporary American movement, she decided her dissertation would examine an historical movement outside of the United States. This decision resulted in three years of research, part of which was in Dublin, Ireland, and culminated in The Land for the People! The Rhetoric of the Irish National Land League as a Response to a Rhetorical Situation. This study examined the discourse of a movement that accomplished in four years what centuries of armed rebellion and constitutional efforts had failed to gain?it got the land given back to the peasants. This analysis traced the ?dance? of rhetorical strategies and tactics between the agitators and the establishment they sought to change. It also included a study of the double-edged relationship between rhetoric and terrorism.
Dr. Lindsey is active in several organizations, from the National Humane Society (this woman cries at cat food commercials!) to Nashville CARES, a help unit for AIDS patients. She acted as the media liaison for an organization that successfully kept Grassmere Wildlife Park from being turned into an office park/condominium/golf course. She also participated in an unsuccessful effort to keep an antebellum home from being torn down for a Kroger superstore. These experiences were brought back into the classroom to offer new insights into rhetorical action.
