Bryan Crable, PhD 
Professor; Founding Director, Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | Villanova University
Villanova , PA, UNITED STATES
Bryan Crable, PhD is a Professor with expertise in rhetoric and politics, contemporary issues of race in America, and social justice.
Media
Publications:
Documents:
Videos:
Audio/Podcasts:
Areas of Expertise (5)
Social Change
Philosophy of Communication and Language
Race and Identity
Whiteness
Rhetoric and Politics
Biography
Communication theory and rhetoric, especially as they relate to the intersection between individual and social identity, are the focus of Dr. Crable's expertise. He also serves as the Director of Villanova's WFI Rome Internship Program, a unique experience that offers students in public relations, journalism, media production, and rhetoric the opportunity to participate in one-of-a-kind internships at the Vatican and United Nations. Crable is a good source for discussion of contemporary issues of race in America, for the link between communication and social justice, and for tracing the history of communication, from orality to literacy to the progressive and increasingly rapid shifts in contemporary communication technology.
Education (3)
Purdue University: PhD
Purdue University: MA
Purdue University: BA
Select Accomplishments (5)
Founding Director, Villanova University's Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society (professional)
Bryan Crable, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society (WFI), a nationally-unique program that highlights the connection between communication and social justice. The WFI funds student documentaries and one-of-a-kind internships at the Vatican and United Nations in Rome. The WFI sponsors annual symposia/conferences, nationally unique research grant programs, and book and article of the year awards.
Top Paper at the 2017 Kenneth Burke Society Triennial Meeting (professional)
“Rhetoric, American Democracy, and Myths of Race: Burkean Insights on our ‘Pre-political’ Foundations.”
Faculty Mentor Award, Honors Program, Villanova University (professional)
May 2016
Veritas Award for Excellence in Research, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Villanova University (professional)
2014
Lifetime Achievement Award, Kenneth Burke Society (professional)
2011
Affiliations (6)
- Kenneth Burke Society, President
- The Taos Institute, Institute Associate
- National Communication Association, Member
- KB—The Kenneth Burke Journal, Associate Editor
- Rhetorical Society of America, Member
- Ralph Ellison Society, Member
Select Media Appearances (5)
White people have a blackface problem
Salon (op-ed)
2019-09-22
The most recent blackface incident links Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the practice on three occasions. Sadly, his is far from an isolated incident. ...Bryan Crable, PhD, is Professor and Founding Director, Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society, at Villanova University.
What does ‘nationalist’ mean?
Mic (op-ed) online
2018-10-26
Bryan Crable, Director of the Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society at Villanova University.
The Pope Became A Social Media Powerhouse Thanks To Some Villanova Wildcats
Fast Company online
2015-09-25
Villanova sends two interns per semester, part of a bigger contingent of students that work in different parts of the Vatican. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” says Professor Bryan Crable, who directs the internship.
Pope Francis became a social media star before the Vatican was ready for it
The Washington Post
2015-09-21
“It’s only recently [that] the scope of what this possibly could mean for the church has really started to affect people’s thinking,” said Bryan Crable, a communications professor at Villanova University.
Should 'bromance' really be in the dictionary? Merriam-Webster thinks so.
The Christian Science Monitor online
2011-08-25
“There’s always a clash between something that the people say all the time, and then the elite who decide when it goes into the dictionary," says Bryan Crable, founding director of Villanova University’s Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society.
Select Academic Articles (5)
Creating the Social Justice Exchange: Inspiration, Collaboration, and the Selection of our Partner Organizations
Putting NCA’s Civil Callings Into Action: The Social Justice Exchange and Supporting Cultures of Collaboration. (In press.)Bryan Crable
Stephen J. Hartnett (ed.). An introductory essay to be published by Routledge, as part of the National Communication Association’s publication on the WFI-funded Social Justice Exchange—this is designed to be a resource for Communication scholars across the country who aspire to bridge the divide between the academy and community activism.
Rhetoric, Anxiety, and Character Armor: Burke’s Interactional Rhetoric of Identity
Western Journal of CommunicationBryan Crable
2017-02-18
Lead article. Volume 70, Issue1 2006): Pages 1-22 Although recognized as a rhetorical theorist, Kenneth Burke is rarely identified as a scholar contributing to research in symbolic interactionism. This essay, accordingly, demonstrates the relevance of Burke's work to the self-presentation literature and, more specifically, his rhetorical theory to questions of individual identity—highlighting Burke's valuable, heretofore overlooked, contribution to this conversation. Second, drawing on Becker and Laing, this essay outlines Burke's interactional rhetoric of identity, discourse aimed at gaining another's cooperation in the defense of the rhetor's identity. Identity is correspondingly treated as a fragile rhetorical production, armor fashioned through symbolic means, ever-renewed through symbol-use in relational contexts.
Invisible Man in the Age of Obama: Ellison on (Color)blindness, Visibility, and the Hopes for a ‘Post-racial’ America
The New Territory: Ralph Ellison and the Twenty-First CenturyBryan Crable
Book Chapter, University Press of Mississippi, 2016. 99-115. Editors Marc Conner & Lucas Morel.
Camus, Sartre, and the Rhetorical Nature of Myth (Book Chapter)
Creating Albert Camus: Foundations and Explorations of his Philosophy of CommunicationBryan Crable
Editors, Brent C. Sleasman. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson Press, 2016. 103-119. [Volume and chapter by Crable reviewed in H-France Review Vol. 16 (August 2016), No. 170.]
Distance as Ultimate Motive: A Dialectical Interpretation of A Rhetoric of Motives
Rhetoric Society QuarterlyBryan Crable
2009-07-07
Lead article (Summer 2009): 213-239. This essay won the the Charles Kneupper Award from the Rhetoric Society of America, for best article of 2009 in Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
Social