The Religious Communication Association (RCA) will host the first-ever Works in Progress sessions at the 2024 RCA conference, held on November 20, 2024, at the Hilton Garden Inn in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our Works in Progress sessions allow authors to share information about their research in an informal, conversational style and receive feedback during the project’s early stages. Proposals in this format were evaluated based on their potential to generate discussions that advance the field of religious communication and provide opportunities to exchange feedback.
Below are the sessions. We hope you can join us!
9:00am-10:15am
Session 1D
Bourbon Room
Works in Progress-1
Chair: Andrea Terry, Sacramento State University
Ontological Disobedience and Decolonization: A Path into an Ontological Turn for Communication Studies, Naaman Wood, St. Paul College
Joel Osteen Pastors America, Reginald Bell, Jr., Monmouth College
God, Send Me to City Hall: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Tyre Nichols Religious Rhetoric by Pastor-Scholar-Activist Rev. Andre E. Johnson, PhD, Christopher A. House, Ithaca College
Evangelicals for Israel: The Study of Rhetorical Influences on Evangelical Israel-Related Ideologies, Abigail Schroeder and Jodeyah Mills, Liberty University
Using Communication Climate Theory and Muted Group Theory in Analyzing “Holy Sexuality Week” (HSW), Amelia Little, Abilene Christian University
10:30am-11:45am
Session 2D
Bourbon Room
Works in Progress-2
Chair: Annette Matlock, Independent Scholar
Do You Condemn Hamas? How Linguistic Terrorism Attempts to Conscript Potential Resistance, E. Michelle Ledder, Metropolitian AME Church
Pivotal Moments and Spiritual Practices: Exploring the Communication of Belonging in Christian Faith, Dorothy Andreas, Abilene Christian University
Rhetorical Analysis of Carlton Pearson’s Universalist Rhetoric and Persuasion, Carl Frederick Hill, University of Memphis
“Homos or Bros? Rembrandt, Male Friendship, and the Constitutive Character of David and Jonathan in Portrait Art”, Jodeyah Mills, Abeline Christian University
The [Prophetic] Fire Next Time: The Dialectic of Belonging and Exile In James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Thomas Fuerst, Memphis Theological Seminary
The Horizon Zero Dawn series: Is a secular escape from religion impossible?, Kevin Schut, Trinity Western University
1:30pm-2:45pm
Session 3D
Bourbon Room
Works in Progress-3
Chair: Andre E. Johnson, University of Memphis
BIPOC Feminism and Spiritual Expression, Annette Madlock, Independent Scholar
I Am That I May Be: A Creative Theological Take on Black Mental Health, Madison “Mocha” Hunter, University of Memphis
Analysis of Kamala Harris’s DNC speech, Jackie Lyde, Duquesne University
Evangelical Covenant Church Women in Leadership, Monica Reeves, Kansas State University
Disenfranchised Grief and the Loss of Children, Janie Dowdy Dandridge, University of Memphis