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Susan Trollinger

Professor

Full-Time Faculty

College of Arts and Sciences: English

Contact

Email: Susan Trollinger
Phone: 937-229-3141
HM 273
Website: Visit Site

Degrees

  • Ph.D., Rhetoric and Communication, University of Pittsburgh
  • M.A., Rhetoric and Communication, University of Pittsburgh
  • B.A., Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin

Profile

Susan Trollinger earned her B.A. at the University of Wisconsin (Communication Arts) and her M.A. and Ph.D. (Rhetoric and Communication) from the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to teaching the first-year course in the interdisciplinary Core program, she also teaches courses in visual rhetoric and composition. She has published in the areas of classical rhetoric, feminist rhetoric, visual rhetoric and American Protestant fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Her book, Selling the Amish: The Tourism of Nostalgia (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) offers an analysis of the visual rhetoric of tourism in Amish Country in Ohio. 

Her most recent book, Righting America at the Creation Museum (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), co-authored with William Vance Trollinger, Jr. (Professor of History in the History and Religious Studies Departments at the University of Dayton) provides a close reading of the visual rhetoric, scientific and biblical argumentation, politics, and historical significance of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky.

Faculty perspective

"Teaching at the University of Dayton is a great privilege. The students at UD are wonderful—they are curious, earnest, and hard working. They want to learn, and they have a strong sense of community both among themselves and with faculty. Teaching in the interdisciplinary Core program is a particular privilege as I have learned a great deal from my colleagues in philosophy, religious studies, history, and English. And I so enjoy witnessing the intellectual growth that students experience across that first year in Core. Finally, I am grateful to the University of Dayton for its support of my research. UD is a place that truly values the research that faculty do, and it works hard both to make that research possible and to recognize it."

Professional activities

  • National Communication Association
  • Modern Language Association
  • Member, Ohio Speakers Bureau, Ohio Humanities Council

Research interests

  • Visual rhetoric
  • Religious rhetoric
  • The rhetoric of tourism
  • The rhetoric of fundamentalism and the Amish

Courses taught

  • ASI 110
  • ASI 120
  • ENG 364
  • ENG 374
  • ENG 499

Selected publications

Righting America at the Creation Museum, with William Trollinger, Jr., Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016

Selling the Amish: The Tourism of Nostalgia, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012

"The Bible and Creationism," with William Trollinger, Jr., The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in America, ed. Paul Gutjhar, Oxford University Press, 2017.