Dorthy L. Pennington

While my research on the discourse of terror and trauma continues, I also maintain my line of research on African American discourse strategies and personae. My most recent journal article is on Barack Obama, constructing a comprehensive persona for him in spiritualist/theological terms. This article shows that Obama's ontological development follows a Christian-theology timeline from "disciple" to "apostle," and argues that Obama's presidential victory (ies) were based, in part, on his Biblical references, employing Pauline theology that had a broad resonance at a time when the country needed to derive a sense of hope. I continue to do research on Obama in terms of applicable leadership theories;

I taught a seminar on Obama during Spring, 2016-.

I am currently (2017) writing a book on interracial communication, focusing on communication between African Americans and white Americans.

An ancillary research area that I recently developed pertains to 'etic' and 'emic' in the pedagogy and andragogy of teaching cultural studies. I published a 2012 journal article on this topic.