Robert Mack

Robert Mack came to Barrett, The Honors College in 2015. Prior to that, he worked as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Denison University. Over the last decade he has taught courses in public speaking, argumentation, rhetorical criticism, psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies, and television studies. 

Dr. Mack's research generally examines the text-audience interface in U.S. American popular culture, and he draws widely on rhetorical, reception, critical, and psychoanalytic approaches in order to analyze this relationship. Much of his work concentrates on unearthing peculiar patterns in popular media (such as images of maternal torment or narratives of inescapable rooms) and considering these patterns for the ways that they crystalize widespread social anxieties. Professor Mack's work has appeared in The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, The Journal of Religion and Communication, and The Quarterly Review of Film and Video. He is also co-author of Critical Media Studies, 2nd ed., an introductory textbook on media theory and criticism.