Biography

Ronald C. Arnett (Ph.D., Ohio University, 1978) is chair and professor of the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies, the Patricia Doherty Yoder and Ronald Wolfe Endowed Chair in Communication Ethics, and the Henry Koren, C.S.Sp., Endowed Chair for Scholarly Excellence (2010–2015) at Duquesne University. He has co-edited seven books and authored/coauthored twelve books, most recently Communication Ethics and Tenacious Hope: Contemporary Implications of the Scottish Enlightenment (2022, Southern Illinois University Press). He is the recipient of eight book awards, including the 2017 Top Book award from the National Communication Association’s Communication Ethics Division and 2017 Distinguished Book award from National Communication Association’s Philosophy of Communication Division for his book Levinas’s Rhetorical Demand: The Unending Obligation of Communication Ethics and the 2013 Top Book Award for Communication Ethics in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt’s Rhetoric of Warning and Hope from the Communication Ethics Division of the National Communication Association. In 2017, he was named Distinguished Scholar by the National Communication Association. He is the recipient of the 2013 Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship from Duquesne University and is the recipient of the 2005 Scholar of the Year Award from the Religious Communication Association. Arnett was named Centennial Scholar of Communication and Centennial Scholar of Philosophy of Communication by the Eastern Communication Association in 2009 and received its Distinguished Service Award in 2019. Arnett is currently serving his third editorship for the Journal of Communication and Religion and is the former editor of the Review of Communication. He is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Communication Association and former Executive Director of the Eastern Communication Association and currently the President of the Semiotic Society of America.