Denise M. Bostdorff

Books

Dr. Bostdorff is the author of two books:

• The Presidency and the Rhetoric of Foreign Crisis (University of South Carolina Press, 1994)

• Proclaiming the Truman Doctrine: The Cold War Call to Arms (Texas A&M University Press, 2008), which won the Bruce E. Gronbeck Award for Political Communication Research in 2010.

Dr. Bostdorff has published extensively in outlets such as Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Voices of Democracy, and Presidential Studies Quarterly. Her work also has appeared in edited volumes like Handbook of Crisis Communication (2023), A Rhetorical History of the United States, Vol. 8: World War II and The Cold War (2018), Rhetoric and Democracy: Pedagogical and Political Practices (2008), The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric (2008), and The Encyclopedia of Political Science (2010).

Representative Publications

• Bostdorff, Denise, M., and Steven R. Goldzwig. “The Rhetoric of Prophetic Dualism: Crisis, American Exceptionalism, and Religious Nationalism in Truman’s St. Patrick’s Day Addresses, March 17, 1948.” Journal for the History of Rhetoric, 28.1 (2025): 1-48. (Lead Article).
• Bostdorff, Denise, M. “Observations on the Rhetoric of Place and Space through Frequency and Location Patterns of Presidential Travel.” Forum on Allison M. Prasch’s The World Is Our Stage: The Global Rhetorical Presidency and the Cold War. Journal for the History of Rhetoric, 27.2 (2024): 245-249.
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “Donald Trump, Access Hollywood, and the Rhetorical Performance of Aggrieved White Masculinity.” Western Journal of Communication, 87.2 (2023): 215-238. 
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “U.S. Presidents and Crisis Communication.” Handbook of Crisis Communication. 2^nd ed. Edited by W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay. Wiley-Blackwell, 2023. 247-260.
• Bostdorff, Denise M., and Steven R. Goldzwig. “Barack Obama’s Eulogy for the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, June 26, 2015: Grace as the Vehicle for Collective Salvation and Obama’s Agency on Civil Rights.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 23.1 (2020): 107-152.
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “Public Address Scholarship and the Effects of Rhetoric.” Special Issue on Rhetorical Criticism, published decennially. Western Journal of Communication 84.1 (2020): 349-364.
• Bostdorff, Denise M., and Daniel J. O’Rourke. “Religion, Sport, and the Return of the Prodigal Son: The Post-Secular Rhetoric of LeBron James’s 2014 ‘I’m Coming Home’ Open Letter.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 21.1 (2018): 1-38. (Lead article).
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “Dean Acheson’s May 1947 Delta Council Speech: Rhetorical Evolution from the Truman Doctrine to the Marshall Plan.” A Rhetorical History of the United States, Vol. 8: World War II and The Cold War. Ed. Martin J. Medhurst. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 2018. 167-214.
• Bostdorff, Denise M., and Shawna H. Ferris. “John F. Kennedy at American University: The Rhetoric of the Possible, Epideictic Progression, and the Commencement of Peace.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 100.4 (2014): 407-441. (Lead article).
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “Epideictic Rhetoric in the Service of War: George W. Bush on Iraq and the 60th Anniversary of the Victory Over Japan.” Communication Monographs 78 (2011): 296-323.
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “Iraq as a Representative Anecdote for Leadership: Barack Obama’s Address on the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War.” Making the Case: Advocacy and Judgment in Public Argument. Ed. Kathryn M. Olson, Benjamin Ponder, Michael William Pfau, and Kirt Wilson. Lansing: Michigan State UP, 2012. 161-189.
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “Judgment, Experience, and Leadership: Candidate Debates on the Iraq War in the 2008 Presidential Primaries.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 12 (Summer 2009): 223-278.
• Bostdorff, Denise M., Chair, Martin Carcasson, James M. Farrell, Robert L. Ivie, Amos Kiewe, and Kathleen B. Smith. “Report of the National Task Force on Presidential Rhetoric in Times of Crisis.” The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric. Ed. James Arnt Aune and Martin J. Medhurst. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. 355-378.
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “Rhetorical Ambivalence: Bush and Clinton Address the Crisis of Haitian Refugees.” Who Belongs in America?: Presidential Rhetoric and the Politics of Immigration. Ed. Vanessa B. Beasley. College Station: Texas A&M UP, 2006. 206-246.
• Bostdorff, Denise M., and Steven R. Goldzwig. “History, Collective Memory, and the Appropriation of Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Reagan Rhetorical Legacy.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 (2005): 661-690.
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “The Internet Rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan: A Case Study in Web Site Community Building Run Amok.” Communication Studies 55 (Summer 2004): 316-337.
• Bostdorff, Denise M. “George W. Bush’s Post-September 11 Rhetoric of Covenant Renewal: Upholding the Faith of the Greatest Generation.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 89 (Nov. 2003): 293-319.