Vanessa Wynder Quainoo
Associate Professor of Communication Studies
Director of Africana Studies Program
CONTACT
Office: 302 Davis Hall
Phone: 401-874-4730
E-mail: Vquainoo@mail.uri.edu
- Ph.D., Rhetoric
- University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass
- M.A., Communication Studies
- Western Illinois University
- B.A., Communication Studies and Theology
- Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois
Graduate
- COM540: Race Discourse
- COM 100: Communication Fundamentals
- COM 210 Persuasion
- COM 333 Oral Performance of African American Literature
- COM 383: Rhetorical Theory
- COM 441 Race & Media
- COM 491 Independent Studies in Com
- COM 492 Independent Studies in Com
- AAF 390 URI in Ghana
- AAF 448 Independent Studies in Africana Thought
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS/PRESENTATIONS
Cry Elimina.(2009) (A Readers Theatre) Written, Directed & Performed at The Elmina Slave Castle, Elmina, Ghana.
African American Women Clergy & Their Sermons. (2011) The Griot (Journal of African American Studies) (forthcoming).
BIO
Dr. Vanessa Wynder Quainoo is associate professor and interim director of the Africana Studies Program at the University of Rhode Island. Having received degrees in Rhetoric , Communication Studies and Theology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass, Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois and Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, Dr. Quainoo has a passion for understanding the potential of the spoken word to create community and bridge racial divisiveness. Dr. Quainoo teaches courses in Rhetoric, Race Discourse, Oral Performance of African American Literature, The African Oral Tradition, Spoken Word & Readers Theatre.
She also directs the Africana Studies Program which offers courses in African and African American Studies, provides educational programs and service projects such as the AID To Haiti Project and encourages cultural diversity within the URI community. The URI in Ghana Study Abroad , Cape Verde Study Abroad and Bermuda Study Abroad Programs are just a few of the opportunities sponsored by the Africana Studies Program which allow students to study abroad in the African Diaspora.
Dr. Quainoo's research merge her interests in rhetoric and theology. An ordained minister, she is currently researching the sermonic texts of African American women clergy and the Changing Dynamics of Faith and Narrative in the Age of Obama.
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Congratulations to
Dr. Kevin McClure
Dr. McClure received the 2010 NCA Outstanding Article Award for "Kenneth Burke's Dramatic Form Criticism," coauthored with F. D. Anderson and A. King, in Rhetorical Criticism, edited by J. A. Kuypers.
