Isaac James Richards
Isaac James Richards is a PhD student in Communication Arts and Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. His honors include the Kenneth Burke Prize in Rhetoric from the Center for Democratic Deliberation and the James L. Golden Outstanding Student Essay in Rhetoric Award from the National Communication Association. He studies the history and theory of writing, rhetoric, media, and communication, with particular attention to the intersection of memory, religion, and democracy.
About
With Ben Crosby, Isaac is co-editor of Latter-day Eloquence: Two Centuries of Mormon Oratory (University of Illinois Press, 2026). His work has appeared in several journals, including Religion & the Arts, The Journal for the History of Rhetoric, The Western Journal of Communication, The Journal of American Culture, The Journal of Media and Religion, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
Isaac has attended the Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar at Harvard Divinity School and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in New York City. His work has been supported by the American Society for the History of Rhetoric, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, the Mormon History Association, and the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. His poetry, prose, and fiction can be found in LIT, Guernica, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere.
Related interests include place, space, materiality, archaeology, and museum studies. His intellectual affinities are to pluralism, pragmatism, postsecularism, and postcritical reading.
He’s currently working on an intellectual biography of Wayne C. Booth, also under contract at the University of Illinois Press.
Experience
Conference Presentations
The International Society for the History of Rhetoric, the Memory Studies Association, the National Communication Association, Rhetoric Society of America, and the Conference on College Composition and Communication
Courses Taught
First-Year Writing, Public Speaking, Honors Writing, Technical Communication, and Popular Culture and Media
Book Reviews
The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Rhetoric Review, Religious Studies Review, The Journal of Communication and Religion
Education
MA in English, Rhetoric and Composition
BA in Communication Studies