Hauser book recognized with national award

Gerard A. Hauser, professor of communication at the CU-Boulder, has received the James A. Winans and Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address from the National Communication Association (NCA). Hauser earned the award for scholarship that was published from April through March of the previous year.

Hauser won the honor for his book, “Prisoners of Conscience: Moral Vernaculars of Political Agency.” Published by the University of South Carolina Press, “Prisoners of Conscience” draws on both classical and contemporary rhetorical theories to analyze how prisoners of conscience use rhetoric to exert their agency and to expose the weaknesses of the state that has imprisoned them. Hauser‘s analysis of what he calls the “thick moral vernacular of human rights” includes case studies of Robben Island Prison in South Africa, the Barashevo prison camp in Siberia, Maze prison in Northern Ireland, and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to offer insights on methods such as parrhesia, passive resistance, indirection, and bodily display under torture as ways in which prisoners of conscience resist.

The award and fund were established by students, colleagues and admirers of the two distinguished Cornell University professors. Hauser will be presented the award during NCA’s 99th Annual Convention, Nov. 21-24, in Washington, D.C. The National Communication Association (NCA) advances communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry.