Sara Vanderhaagen
- Associate Professor, Communication
Education
- PhD, Communication Studies, Northwestern University
- MA, Communication Studies, Northwestern University
- BA, Communication Arts and Sciences and Philosophy, Calvin College
Teaching Schedule
| Course Num | Title | Meets |
|---|---|---|
| COMMUN 335-001 | Critical Analysis of Communication | MW 1pm-2:15pm |
| COMMUN 900-001 | Philosophy and Practice of Communication | T 2:30pm-5:10pm |
| COMMUN 973-001 | Topics in Rhetorical Research: African American Public Discourse | R 2:30pm-5:10pm |
Research Interests
Profestor Vanderhaagen's research focuses on how members of the public use rhetoric to argue about and reshape stories about the past. She is especially interested in how public discourse about the past is affected by the dynamics of race, gender, age, and agency. Broader areas of interest include African American rhetoric, public discourse about race and gender, rhetorical theory and rhetorical criticism.
Selected Publications
VanderHaagen, Sara C. Community and Critique: The Rhetorical Activism of Black American Women's Memory Work. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2025.
VanderHaagen, Sara C. "Memory Work and Rhetorical Activism." Oxford Handbook of African American Women's Writing. Edited by Simone C. Drake (2025).
VanderHaagen, Sara C. ““‘A Grand Sisterhood’: Black American Women Speakers at the 1893 World’s Congress of Representative Women”” Quarterly Journal of Speech (2021).
VanderHaagen, Sara C. Review of "Practicing Citizenship: Women's Rhetoric at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair" 44.1 Women's Studies in Communication. 2021.
Bloomfield, Emma F., and VanderHaagen, Sara C. “Where Women Scientists Belong: Placing Feminist Memory in Biography Collections for Children” Women's Studies in Communication (2021).
VanderHaagen, Sara. Review of "Remembering Emmett Till" 106.2 Quarterly Journal of Speech. 2020: 205-209
VanderHaagen, Sara. “(Mis)Quoting King: Commemorative Stewardship and Ethos in the Controversy over the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial” Argumentation and Advocacy (2019).
VanderHaagen, Sara. Children's Biographies of African American Women: Rhetoric, Public Memory, and Agency Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. 2018.
VanderHaagen, Sara. “A Tale of Two Wheatleys: The Shifting Values of Twentieth-Century Historical Fiction in the Biographical Novels of Shirley Graham and Ann Rinaldi” Children's Literature Association Quarterly 43.3 (2018): 240-262.
VanderHaagen, Sara, and Ray, Angela G. “A Pilgrim-Critic in the Reconstruction South: Anna Dickinson’s Tour of 1875” Quarterly Journal of Speech 100.3 (2014): 348-72.
VanderHaagen, Sara. “The "Agential Spiral": Reading Public Memory through Paul Ricoeur” Philosophy and Rhetoric 46.2 (2013): 182-206.
VanderHaagen, Sara. “Practical Truths: Black Feminist Agency and Public Memory in Biographies for Children” Women's Studies in Communication 35.1 (2012): 18-41.
VanderHaagen, Sara. “Renewing Tradition in Community: George W. Bush, Calvin College, and the Controversy over Identity” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 11.4 (2008): 535-68.