Composition and Rhetorical Studies Program

At Illinois State, we theorize, teach, and practice rhetoric in ways that emphasize rhetoric's contributions to a better understanding of why we do what we do in the world. We believe that rhetorical study opens up new ways of understanding the relationships among different subfields of English Studies, and this belief is borne out in a program that considers, for example, rhetorics of emotion, rhetorics of public discourse, and rhetorics of authorship.

Rhetoric at Illinois State is a thriving, innovative, and exciting program with faculty whose shared goals include fostering critical language awareness in students' academic, personal, and professional lives. Our undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetoric help students develop an understanding of rhetoric in historical, political, and ideological contexts.