Samantha Senda-Cook, PhD

Chair, Communication Studies

Professor

photo placeholder for Senda-Cook, Samantha

Contact

SamanthaSenda-Cook@creighton.edu
College of Arts and Sciences
Communication Studies
Hitchcock Center for Communication Art 306G

Samantha Senda-Cook, PhD

Chair, Communication Studies

Professor

Samantha Senda-Cook (PhD, University of Utah) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and an affiliated faculty member with the Environmental Science and Sustainability programs at Creighton University. She studies rhetorical theory and analyzes environmental communication and materiality in the contexts of social movements, outdoor recreation, and urban spaces/places. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Japan in 2019. She and her co-editors—Bridie McGreavy, Justine Wells, George F. McHendry, Jr.—were recognized with the Tarla Rai Peterson Distinguished Book Award for their volume, Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life: Ecological Approaches in 2018. Her co-authored book Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ, won the Outstanding Book of the Year in 2016 award from the National Communication Association’s Critical and Cultural Studies Division. Additionally, she was invited to be a plenary speaker at the 15th Biennial Public Address Conference in 2016. Her work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Environmental Communication, International Journal of Wilderness, Southern Journal of Communication, and Argumentation and Advocacy. Along with Michael Middleton and Danielle Endres, her co-authored article, “Articulating Rhetorical Field Methods: Challenges and Tensions,” won the B. Aubrey Fisher Award for best article published in the Western Journal of Communication in 2011. Because she is interested in making this scholarship relevant to community members, she has given public presentations at a monthly open meeting of the Gifford Park Neighborhood Association and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and has spoken about her experience in Japan on a local radio show. She teaches courses in rhetoric, environmental communication, intercultural communication, and communication practices. Additionally, she seeks out opportunities to mentor undergraduate student researchers, several of which have presented at conferences and published their work. Valuing community service and engagement, she volunteers with the Community Bike Project Omaha, which is dedicated to creating equitable social conditions for everyone. When she is not researching, teaching, or volunteering, she can usually be found reading a mystery novel, trying out a new recipe, or riding the hills of Omaha on her bike.

Department

Communication Studies

Position

Professor

Books

  • Asen Robert, Chevrette Roberta, Chávez Karma R, Chávez Karma R, Endres Danielle, Ewalt Joshua P, Haliliuc Alina, Hess Aaron, Howard Robert Glenn, Landau Jamie, McKinnon Sara L, Middleton Michael K, Na'puti Tiara R, Ohl Jessy J, Onís Kathleen M. de, Pezzullo Phaedra C, Senda-Cook Samantha, Silvestri Lisa, Thatcher Valerie, Smith Pfister Damien, Text + Field 2022
  • McGreavy B, Wells Justine, McHendry George (Guy), Senda-Cook Samantha, Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life 2018
  • Endres Danielle, Hess Aaron, Middleton Michael, Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Participatory Critical Rhetoric Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric in Situ 2015

Book, Chapter/Section

  • Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life
    Senda-Cook Samantha, McHendry George F., Embodying Resistance: A Rhetorical Ecology of the Full Cycle Supper [Book Chapter] 2018
  • McKinnon Sara L., Asen Robert, Chávez Karma R., Howard Robert Glenn, Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Text + Field : Innovations in Rhetorical Method [Book Chapter] 2016
  • Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Middleton Michael, Endres Danielle, Interrogating the 'Field' [Book Chapter] 2016
  • Lexington Studies in Political Communication
    Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Practicing Rhetoric [Book Chapter] 2014
  • Environmental Rhetoric and Ecologies of Place
    Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Endres Danielle., A Place of one's Own [Book Chapter] 2013

Publications

  • Cultural studies, critical methodologies
    Senda-Cook Samantha, The privilege of control and the constraint of presence: Fieldwork and ontologies of time 2024
  • Frontiers in communication
    Senda-Cook Samantha, McGreavy Bridie, Endres Danielle, Sowards Stacey K., Engaging complex temporalities in environmental rhetoric
    8 2023
  • Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture
    Senda-Cook Samantha, Bloomfield Emma Frances, Building Coalitions from Shared Pieties
    17:1 2023
  • Frontiers in Communication
    Senda-Cook Samantha, Physicality in Postcolonialism
    6 2021
  • Western Journal of Communication
    Senda-Cook Samantha, Long Memories
    84:4, p. 419 - 438 2020
  • Argumentation and Advocacy
    Senda-Cook Samantha, Privilege in a place ballet
    56:4, p. 205 - 222 2020
  • International Journal of Communication
    Hess Aaron, Senda-Cook Samantha, Middleton Michael K., Endres Danielle, (Participatory) Critical Rhetoric
    14, p. 870 - 884 2020
  • Frontiers in Communication
    Senda-Cook Samantha, Contrived Making Do As Rhetorical Practice in Outdoor Recreation
    2 2017
  • Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies
    Middleton Michael K., Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Hess Aaron, Endres Danielle, Contemplating the Participatory Turn in Rhetorical Criticism
    16:6, p. 571 - 580 2016
  • Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies
    Endres Danielle, Hess Aaron, Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Middleton Michael K., In Situ Rhetoric: Intersections between Qualitative Inquiry, Fieldwork, and Rhetoric
    16:6, p. 511 - 524 2016
  • Review of Communication
    Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Extending Rhetorical criticism's Engagement
    16:1, p. 95 - 97 2016
  • International Journal of Wilderness
    Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Wilderness within Reach
    21:1, p. 29 - 33 2015
  • Southern Communication Journal
    McHendry George F., Middleton Michael K., Endres Danielle, Senda-Cook Samantha, O'Byrne Megan, Rhetorical Critic(ism)'s Body: Affect and Fieldwork on a Plane of Immanence
    79:4, p. 293 - 310 2014
  • Argumentation and Advocacy
    Endres Danielle, Senda-Cook Samantha, Cozen Brian, Not Just a Place to Park Your Car
    50:3, p. 121 - 140 2014
  • Environmental Communication-a Journal of Nature and Culture
    Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Materializing Tensions: How Maps and Trails Mediate Nature
    7:3, p. 355 - 371 2013
  • Quarterly Journal of Speech
    Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Rugged Practices: Embodying Authenticity in Outdoor Recreation
    98:2, p. 129 - 152 2012
  • Women and Language
    Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Ecofeminism and Rhetoric: Critical Perspectives on Sex, Technology, and Discourse
    35:1, p. 143 - 144 2012
  • Western Journal of Communication
    Middleton Michael K., Senda-Cook Samantha, Endres Danielle, Articulating rhetorical field methods
    75:4, p. 386 - 406 2011
  • Quarterly Journal of Speech
    Endres D., Senda-Cook Samantha Marie, Location Matters: The Rhetoric of Place in Protest
    97:3, p. 257 - 282 2011
  • KB journal
    Senda-Cook Samantha, Fahrenheit 9/11's Purpose-Driven Agents: A Multipentadic Approach to Political Entertainment
    4:2 2008

Grants

  • Communication Apprehension Reduction: Assessing the Effectiveness of an Online Public Speaking Course/Sponsor: Creighton University Center for Faculty Excellence/CFE

  • Climate Change, Animal Rights, and Gender: Contemporary Tensions in Dog Sledding/Sponsor: CURAS Magis Investigatio Research Award/MIRA

  • Climate Change, Animal Rights, and Gender: Contemporary Tensions in Dog Sledding/Sponsor: President's Office

Awards

  • Top Four Papers
    Samantha Senda-Cook, “For Love of Place and People: How Belonging and Privilege Facilitate Slow Acts of Resistance,” National Communication Association Conference, Dallas, November, 2017
    Environmental Communication Division
  • Tarla Rai Peterson Outstanding Book of the Year
    Bridie McGreavy, Justine Wells, George F. McHendry, Jr., and Samantha Senda-Cook, editors, Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life: Ecological Approaches (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), awarded in November 2018
    National Communication Association – Environmental Communication Division
  • Fulbright Research Award
    “Advocacy through Agriculture: Communication at the Asian Rural Institute,” Japan, 2019, awarded in 2018.
    The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
  • Invited Plenary Speaker
    Presented “A Place Ballet of Resistance” at the 15th Biennial Public Address Conference in Syracuse, NY. September 29-October 1, 2016.
    15th Biennial Public Address Conference
  • Outstanding Book of the Year
    Awarded to the best book in 2015 or 2016 for Michael Middleton, Aaron Hess, Danielle Endres, and Samantha Senda-Cook, Participatory Critical Rhetoric: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for Studying Rhetoric In Situ, (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), awarded in November 2016.
    National Communication Association – Critical & Cultural Studies Division
  • Visiting Professor
    Department of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  • B. Aubrey Fisher Award
    Awarded to the best article published in the Western Journal of Communication. For the article: for Michael Middleton, Samantha Senda-Cook, & Danielle Endres, “Articulating Rhetorical Field Methods,” Western Journal of Communication 75, no. 4 (2011): 386-406.
    Western Journal of Communication
    Western Journal of Communication