Department of English

Freya Thimsen’s research and teaching revolve around questions about the relationship between radical and conventional political rhetorics. How and when do radical imagery, arguments, technologies, and narratives make their way into more conventional politics? What are the political potentials of radicalism? Her recent book, The Democratic Ethos: Authenticity and Instrumentalism in US Movement Rhetoric after Occupy, analyzes legal writing, digital petitions, non-fiction popular press books, speeches, film, viral controversies, street protest, community organizing, mass conference calls, speeches, civil disobedience and direct action, journalism, and other texts. The book argues that the sense of democratic credibility pursued and consolidated by the Occupy demonstrations has made its way into the practices of movement organizations and generated a type of prefigurative politics that is more instrumental. She has published on populist and right-nationalist political rhetorics, including celebrity politics and campaign finance issues. Her current research is on the way contemporary LGBTQ+ rhetoric relates to corporate financial support and institutionalized sources of authority such as medicine and the law, especially in response to prohibitions on speech. 

Her courses explore the historical and contemporary tensions within feminist, LGBTQ+, and Black liberation movement rhetorics as well as democratic theory. Her work has appeared in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Javnost —The Public, The Review of Communication, and Philosophy & Rhetoric. 

Courses Taught:

ENG R228: Argumentation and Public Advocacy

ENG R214: Feminist Rhetoric and Public Issues

ENG R340: Rhetoric of Social Movements