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Initial Requirements

COMM 1010 - Introduction to Communication Studies
Examination of how communication principles and skills influence our understanding of current social problems such as global climate crisis, health care, and poverty. Focus on communication and community engagement includes experimental learning with community partners. Oral communication skills and collaborative group building skills are emphasized.
COMM 1440 - Honors Classical Argument
Uses of argument in rational decision-making based on classical theories of reason. Elements of argument, classical foundations of argument and contemporary application of argument principles.
COMM 2020 - Interpersonal Communication
Introduction to interpersonal communication research results and theories with application in two-person and small group relationships in a variety of human communication contexts.
COMM 2040 - Public Speaking
Introduction to principles of and practice in preparing public speaking speeches. Stresses the role of public speaking in democratic decision-making.
COMM 2060 - Performance of Literature
Performance as a method of textual study. An introduction to the theory and practice of analyzing, rehearsing and performing non-dramatic texts. Recommended for elementary education majors.
COMM 2140 - Advocating in Public
Introduction to the critical dimensions of rhetoric and argument through presentation and evaluation of public discourse. Balanced attention to the theory and practice enabling students to analyze the persuasive function of public discourse; to discuss the role of audience in the construction of public discourse; and to develop skills for constructing, supporting, and evaluating public discourse.
COMM 3010 - Communication Perspectives
Intensive research and writing course in which students learn concepts and skills necessary to review communication research, engage in critical research about communication phenomena and write a research proposal. This course must be taken prior to or concurrently with a student's first enrollment in upper-division COMM courses. A student who fails to complete the course successfully after two attempts (either through withdrawal or failure to achieve a grade of C or better) will not be permitted to enroll in subsequent semesters.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: Non-Majors are ineligible for enrollment in COMM 3010.
Majors: COMM 1010 and two of the three 2000-level courses required for the pre-major (2020, 2060, 2140).

Major Courses (Divided by Area of Interest)

Interpersonal, Digital & Organizational

COMM 3120 - Nonverbal Communication
Applications of research and theory in understanding the impact of nonverbal communication in a variety of human contexts.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3220 - Health Communication
Communication in medical settings; origins, nature and impact of communication practices and beliefs in the health-care delivery system; role of interaction on human well-being.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3320 - Communication and Conflict Management
Examination of the role of communication in the effective management of conflict and introduction to basic mediation topics such as gender, intercultural and nonverbal communication. Study of conflict in various common contexts: intrapersonal, interpersonal, group and organizational.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020, AECO 4000, AECO 4020, or AECO 4120
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3420 - Communication and New Technology
Examination of communication in technologically mediated environments. Emphasis on how these environments affect impression formation and management, deception and trust, attraction and relationship formation, group dynamics, social support and networking, community building, etc.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3620 - Intercultural Communication
Knowledge and skills designed to increase intercultural communication competence. Investigation into the ways in which culture interrelates with and affects communication processes. Examines affective, behavioral and cognitive processes involved in intercultural learning.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3720 - Small Group Communication
Theory, research and laboratory experience in small group communication; problems in group discussion; decision-making techniques.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020 or PSYC 2650
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3820 - Social Media Perspectives
Examination of how emerging communication tools and technologies change the nature of human communication. Provides a socio-historical understanding of the changing nature of media technology and the rise of social media as well as an exploration of driving factors and future trends in social media technology development.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3920 - Organizational Communication
Principles of communication applied in the organizational environment. Focus upon diagnosis, analysis, and resolution methods related to communication-based problems with organizations.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020, PSYC 3520, MGMT 3820, MGMT 4460, or MGMT 4470
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4020 - Communication Theory
Process of theory construction with particular emphasis on human communication, elements and types of theories, theoretical logics, and metatheoretical perspectives toward communication, and specific content theories of communication.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4120 - Communication and Sport
Examination of sport communication research from three perspectives: (1) a practical perspective aimed at improving performance, (2) an interpretive perspective addressing how participants make sense of their participation, and (3) a critical perspective interrogating problematic aspects of sport, including issues of gender, race, and class.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4220 - Theories of Crisis Communication
Communication plays a central role in crisis planning, real-time crisis response, and post-crisis recovery and sensemaking. Considering crises and disasters are situated in communication, the purpose of this course is to develop a theoretical and practical understanding of crisis (and disaster) communication.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4320 - Communications and Virtual Gaming
Exploration of fundamental concepts related to games and gamers from socio-cultural, psychological and technological viewpoints. Explores the role of gaming technologies in communication, focusing on how they change the nature of communication and their impacts on people's lives and on society, and develops analytical abilities for examining games and gaming technology.
COMM 4420 - Communication and Relational Development
The role of communication processes in initiating, developing, defining, maintaining and dissolving various forms of human relationships. Examines the nature of communication in a variety of relational contexts.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4829 - Topics in Interpersonal/Digital/Organizational Communication
Rotating topics in interpersonal communication, organizational communication, or communication research methods. Previously offered classes include:
  • Leadership and Communication
  • Family Communication
Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2020
Majors: COMM 3010

Performance Studies

COMM 3260 - Storytelling, Narrative, & Everyday Life
Investigation of the role of story in the formation of identity and culture, as well as exploration of the narrative structure of everyday life.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2060 or THEA 1050
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3760 - Performance Methods
Advanced topics in individual performance as a method of textual study as well as theory and practice in individual performance as an aesthetic event and as a rhetorical and social act.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2060 or THEA 1050
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3865 - Adaptation and Staging
Adaptation and staging for performance. Focus on the visual language of stage composition, adaptation and staging non-dramatic materials, examinations of the roles of the director, actor and audience member.
COMM 4060 - Performance Theory
Examination and comparison of text-centered, performer-centered and audience-centered theories of performance; functions of performance; and methods for evaluating performance.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2060 + 3760 or 3860
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4260 - Performance and Culture
Examination of the role of performance in cultures. Research and analysis of texts and performance practices among various ethnic and cultural groups.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: None
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4265 - Performance and Activism
This course analyzes not only how performance provides a vital public forum, but also how theories and methodologies from Performance Studies can be applied to the study of demonstrations, protests, and activist undertakings.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: None
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4360 - Performance Composition
Contemporary performance practices as critical and persuasive tools. Develops skills in reading, writing, analyzing and performing a broad range of texts to acquaint students with the variety of methods whereby performances can be composed.

Prereqs:
Non-Majors: COMM 2060 + 3760 or 3860; or THEA 1050 + 2351
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4460 - Performance Art
Survey of historical and contemporary avant-garde performance art. Examination of historical and contemporary movements to develop a critical lens and vocabulary for composing performances.
COMM 4465 - Per[FORM]ing Autoethnography
Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that invites students to engage in cultural analysis through personal narrative and storytelling. This course explores various forms of autoethnographic inquiry to consider the ways in which race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and dis/ability are socially constructed and performed in everyday life.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: None
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4869 - Topics in Performance Studies
Rotating topics may include: performance of particular genres, including poetry narrative, drama or non-literary texts; performance methods, including thematic approaches to performance or historical styles of performance; or theoretical issues in performance, including narrative theory, intertextuality or New Historicism. Previously offered classes include:
  • Tourism, Performance, and Culture
  • Performative Writing

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2060 + 3760 or 3860; or THEA 1050 + 2351
Majors: COMM 3010

Communication, Culture, and Public Discourse

COMM 3340 - Methods of Rhetorical Criticism
Survey of significant methodologies available to rhetorical critics. Emphasis on the critical abilities necessary to describe, explain, analyze, and evaluate symbolic influence in the public sphere.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3440 - Public Address Studies
Major theories of public address and the critical assessment of selected persuasive addresses in the public arena.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3445 - Propaganda & Persuasion
This course explores the symbolic means by which people in the United States pursue their political interests. Over the course of the semester, students work to read develop their own distinctions between ethical and unethical rhetoric to determine what differentiates persuasion from propaganda.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: None
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3540 - The Zombie as Rhetorical Figure
Explores the rhetorical figure of the zombie, its cultural force, the way it is put into the service of different structural forces, and made to speak for certain causes. Attends to the zombie figure's roots and circulation across film, television, graphic novels, other literature, and even scientific inquiry in order to track its meaning and uses.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: None
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 3840 - Argumentation and Debate
Theory, research and practice in developing and presenting arguments on public policy issues; reasoning, strategy and oral advocacy.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2040 or 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4040 - Rhetorical Theory
A study of rhetorical traditions that provide useful insights into how individuals engage in rhetorical transactions.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4140 - Gender and Communication
Gender & Communication explores connections between gender, rhetoric, and public culture. Critiquing rhetorical constructions of gender expectations in U.S. discourses, especially as they intersect with race, class, and sexualities, this course offers students the opportunity to study a range of public rhetorics including protests, legislative policies, speeches, movies, poetry, television, and music.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140 or WMST 2100
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4240 - Rhetoric and Popular Culture
Consequences of discourse on popular culture. May include communication throughout the life cycle, rhetorical creation and maintenance of social movements, international and intercultural rhetoric, feminist rhetorical criticism, ideological criticism, the rhetorical aspects of popular culture and the grounds for the criticism of culture from a rhetorical perspective.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4340 - Rhetoric and Politics
Rhetoric of political campaigns, presidential rhetoric, legal communication, and the rhetorical creation, maintenance, use and legitimization of symbolic power.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4345 - The Rhetoric of Other Worlds
Students analyze speculative fiction as political rhetoric using theories of public address, worldmaking, democracy, and propaganda. Students use the rhetorical devices of speculative fiction to imagine the world as it could be and reflect on their creations.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4440 - Landscapes of Public Memory
This course examines contemporary locations and landscapes of public memory. The course begins with the fundamental assumption that contemporary rhetoric plays a primary role in shaping individuals' experiences with public (memory) spaces. In this class we will explore particularly salient locations of public memory and investigate how one's experience and understanding of such places is rhetorically informed.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4540 - Communication Theories of Sexuality
This course examines the ways in which sexuality is constituted through (public) discourses. Students will learn how to use critical theories to investigate rhetorics that sustain multiple and intersecting sexual identities and gender performances; and apply what they have learned to their everyday experiences with popular culture. Topics to be addressed include the rhetorical construction and disciplining of heteronormativity, heterosexual and queer sexualities, as well as performances of masculinity and femininity.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4545 - Rhetorics of Protest, Movements(s), & Resistance
This course focuses on how people communicate with and about social justice as rhetorical agents, attempting to change public culture. Offering an exploration of social movement(s), protest, and resistance, this course surveys a wide variety of social protest ranging from pickets, speeches, petition, marches, sit-ins, strikes, social media messaging, and subversive humor, art, and film.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4640 - Latin@ Rhetorics
This course examines the ways in which discourse is created, circulates, and constitutes contemporary understandings of "Latin@-ness" in the United States. Students will learn how to use a critical rhetorical lens to investigate how Latin@ identity, community, and politics have come to be meaningful in the contemporary United States. Topics to be addressed include histories of Latin@ experience in the United States, (interscting) performances/expressions of Latin@ identity, borders/bordering, and popular representations of Latin@s.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4740 - Landscapes of Public Memory
Examines contemporary locations and landscapes of public memory. Begins with the fundamental assumption that contemporary rhetoric plays a primary role in shaping individuals' experiences with public (memory) spaces. Explores particularly salient locations of public memory and investigates how one's experience and understanding of such places is rhetorically informed.

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010
COMM 4849 - Topics in Rhetorical Studies
Investigation of various topics related to the study of humans using symbolic discourse to influence others. Theory and application using qualitative and historical/critical methodologies. Previous classes offered include:
  • Visual Rhetoric
  • Rhetorics of Food

Prerequisites:
Non-Majors: COMM 2140
Majors: COMM 3010

Arranged Undergraduate Courses in Communication Studies

COMM 3880 - Debate Practicum
Practicum. Instruction and practice in competitive debate. Advanced discussion of argumentation theory and debate practice with an emphasis on contemporary intercollegiate debate. Requires participation in debate tournaments and weekly team meetings.

Prerequisites:
Senior standing
Requires department consent. Reach out to Brian.Lain@unt.edu for more information.
COMM 4800 - Communication Internship
Supervised work in a job directly related to the student's major, professional field of study or career objective.

Prerequisites:
Senior standing
Requires department consent. Reach out to COMMAdvising@unt.edu for more information.
COMM 4950-4951 - Senior Honors Thesis
Available to COMM majors having completed at least 90 semester hours with an overall GPA of 3.50 or better.

Prerequisites:
Senior standing
Requires department consent. Reach out to COMMAdvising@unt.edu for more information.
Dr. Erin O'Connor
Dr. Erin O'Connor
Undergraduate Advisor
COMMAdvising@unt.edu
GAB 316
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