Robert Sullivan

Professor, Literatures in English
Phone: 607-274-3930
Office: Muller Faculty Center 417, Ithaca, NY 14850
Specialty: Rhetoric, Argumentation, Communication Ethics

I have been at Ithaca College since 1996, teaching communication as a liberal art. Most of my teaching has been within the discipline of rhetoric, and over the years I have taught a variety classes on Classical rhetorical theory, Classical literature, argumentation theory, propaganda, and communication ethics.

I am a historian of ideas, my research focus being the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition and the subsequent reception of that tradition, particularly during the Renaissance. My most recent publication is Thomas Elyot, Critical Editions of Four Works on Counsel: The Doctrinal of Princes, Pasquill the Playne, Of That Knowlage Whiche Maketh a Wise Man, and The Defence of Good Women(Brill: 2018) which I co-authored with Arthur Walzer. I've also published widely on Classical and Renaissance rhetoric, and on college pedagogy. I am currently working on two book projects, a collection of contributed essays on the relationship between rhetoric and autocracy, and a reconstruction of the techne rhetorikeof the 'Attic orator' Isocrates.

Among the many other hats I wear, I am currently the coordinator of the Culture and Communication major and departmental honors coordinator for the Communication Studies department. 

And, obviously, Red Sox and Arsenal. TID.