Zoë Hess Carney

Corporate Communication and Public Affairs

Professor of Practice

Email

zcarney@smu.edu

Zoë Hess Carney is a scholar of public address whose research focuses on transnational political communication. Her dissertation developed a model for understanding presidential rhetoric in a post-Cold War global era. She is also a communication strategist with experience in marketing and trial consulting. Her academic and professional experiences strengthen her commitment to teaching students how to think critically and communicate ethically.

Dr. Carney designs her courses around the idea that communication is a citizen-making discipline. She coaches students in strategies for evaluating messages, engaging in dialogue, and producing purposeful and persuasive messages. As such, her classroom is a prime location for discourses on race, gender, class, and the role of communication in forming and challenging systems of oppression.

Dr. Carney focuses on how contemporary problems facing our nation and world connect to the past, teaching students how to trace rhetorical histories through textual analysis and archival research.

Education

Ph.D., Georgia State University, Communication (Rhetoric & Politics)
M.A., Texas A&M University, Communication (Rhetoric & Public Affairs)
B.A., Texas A&M University, Communication, Spanish minor

Recent Work

Recent Publications:

Carney, Zoë Hess. “Obama’s Transformation of American Myths,” in Neo-Race Realities in the Obama Era, ed. Heather Harris (New York: SUNY Press, 2019), 3 – 22.

Carney, Zoë Hess and Xiaobo Wang. “‘Oba-Mao’: The Synthesis of National Leaders as Transnational Rhetorical Resources,” China Media Research 15 (1), 2019: 23 – 33.

Carney, Zoë Hess and Allison M. Prasch. “A Journey for Peace”: Spatial Metaphors and Nixon’s 1972 ‘Opening to China,’” Presidential Studies Quarterly 47 (4), 2017: 163 – 664.

Carney, Zoë Hess and Mary E. Stuckey. “The World as the American Frontier: Racialized Presidential War Rhetoric,” Southern Communication Journal 80 (3), 2015: 163 – 188. Lead Article.

Course list

Free Speech and the First Amendment  
Principles of Political Communication  
Presidential Rhetoric  
Public Speaking  
Communication Theory  

 

 

 

Zoe Hess Carney