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Gavin Hurley, Ph.D.

Dr. Hurley is an Associate Professor of Communication & Literature. He also directs the Writing Program.

He teaches the following courses: Rhetoric & Poetics I, Rhetoric & Poetics II, Business Communication, Writing for Journalism, Writing & Dialogue: Plato to Podcasts, Travel Writing, and Honors 101. He occasionally co-teaches "Popular Catholicism" courses (such as "The Spiritual Thriller" or "Detective Fiction and Film") with Dr. Jasso for the Communication & Literature Department. He teaches communication courses for the MBA graduate program, as well.

Over the years, he has published across a variety of scholarly and journalistic venues--and continues to do so.

His personal website can be found at .

Peer-reviewed journal articles

• “Dialogic Gravitas: Catholic Horror Fiction and Dialectical Discourse.” The Journal of Dialogic Ethics 4, no. 2 (Fall 2025).
• “Deglamorizing AI Writing: A Weaverian Return to Language, Reality, and Rhetoric.” Magyar Nyelvőr (Special Issue: Linguistics and Communication in the Mediated and Digital World), vol. 149, no. 5, 2025, pp. 649-658.
• “Contemplative Action / Actionable Contemplation: Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s New Rhetoric and the Socio-Spiritual Nexus.” Journal of Communication and Religion, vol. 47, no. 4, 2024, pp. 84-101.
• “Augustinian Composition Pedagogy and the Catholic Liberal Arts in the Time of Generative AI." Journal of Catholic Education 27, no. 2 (2024): 59-75.
• “The Chronos Principle: ‘Knowing Thy Time’ in Communication Management.” Philosophy of Management 21 (April 2022): 507-22.
• “Accommodating Inspiration: Discernment and Imitation within the Ignatian Rhetorical  Tradition.” Journal for the History of Rhetoric 24, no. 2 (2021): 223-38.
• “Eschatology, Pluralism, and Communication in Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers.” Journal of Communication and Religion 41, no.  2 (2018): 75-92.
• “Thinking Vertically, Writing Horizontally: A Trivium-Framed First-Year Composition Course.” Listening: Journal of  Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture 53, no. 2 (2018): 92-101.
• “William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist and Rhetoric-Dialectic Interplay.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 29, no. 2 (2017): 104-18.
• “Empowering Catholic Communicators: A Trivium Heuristic for First-Year Writing  Courses.” Journal of Catholic Higher Education 36, no. 2 (2017): 121-43.

Scholarly essays

• “Dario Argento’s Apollonian-Dionysian Dialectic.” In Critical Perspectives on Dario Argento, edited by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns. Bloomsbury, expected 2026.
• Victimhood and Rhetorical Communication within  Clive Barker’s Faustian Fiction.” In Re-imagining the Victim in  Post-1970s Horror Media, edited by Madelon Hoedt and Marko Lukic, pp.  153-69. Amsterdam University Press, 2024.
• “The Analog of Self-Authenticity in The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion.” In  Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in National Context and  Abroad, edited by Matthew Edwards and Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, pp. 84-101. University Press of Mississippi, 2023.
• “The Rhetoric of Contemplative Horror: Inquiry, Discovery, and Optimism.” In Horror and Philosophy: Essays on Their Intersection in Film, Television and  Literature, edited by Subashish Bhattacharjee and Fernando Gabriel  Pagnoni Berns, pp. 9-24. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2023.
• “Touring the ‘Burning Times’: The Rhetoric of Witch-Hunting Films, 1968-1973.”  In Virtual Dark Tourism: Ghost Roads, edited by Kathryn McDaniel, pp. 113-36. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

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