Rate My Professor Marita Gronnvoll

Marita Gronnvoll is a Professor and Assistant Chair in the School of Communication and Journalism at Eastern Illinois University. She holds a Ph.D. in Speech Communication from the University of Georgia (2008), an M.A. in Speech Communication from the University of Washington (2003), and a B.A. in Speech Communication from the University of Washington (2000), with a focus on rhetorical theory and criticism. Her specialization is in gender and feminist studies within the field of Communication Studies. Dr. Gronnvoll's research interests encompass rhetoric, media, popular culture, and Communication Studies more broadly. She has published on topics including news and entertainment media representations of torture post-9/11 and media constructions of female suicide bombers in the war on terrorism.

Dr. Gronnvoll authored the book Media Representations of Gender and Torture Post-9/11 (Routledge, 2010). Selected publications include "Critiques of Popular Cultural Representations of 9/11" in American Studies (2014), and the chapter "The Heavy Heart of a Soldier: Apology as Resistance," co-authored with Claudia Janssen Danyi, in The Rhetoric of Official Apologies: Critical Essays (2020). Other works feature contributions such as "Gender (In)visibility at Abu Ghraib" (2007) and analyses of metaphors in genomics discourse (2010). She teaches courses in rhetoric, media, and popular culture, including Communication & Popular Culture, Persuasion, Political Communication, and Communication Theory. Dr. Gronnvoll has served on university committees, including as Chair of the Council on Academic Affairs, and was appointed to the editorial board of the Quarterly Journal of Speech in 2013. She received the ACA Service Award in recognition of her contributions.