The American Society for the History of Rhetoric is excited to announce the winners for its 2025 dissertation and mentor awards. From an uncommonly excellent pool of submissions, these winners have been selected:
Winner of the 2025 ASHR Dissertation Award: Dr. Shatha Alhubail, Rhetorics of Sacred Masquerade: Identification and Power in Shia Islamic and Theocratic Discourse (University of Miami, directed by Dr. Heidi McKee).
Rhetorics of Sacred Masquerade draws from primary and secondary sources in both English and Arabic to read the rhetoric of Ayatollah Khomeini, as well as other theocratic rhetorics surrounding the Iranian revolution, using the resources of several critical traditions, from Aristotle and Al-Farabi to Louis Althusser. This project also features what Alhubail has termed Aqsusa min Hayati, or short personal vignettes of her lived experience, to bolster the argument and demonstrate its exigence. This catalytic combination of deep historical research and dynamic methodology produces a reading of theocratic rhetoric that is both aesthetically and critically outstanding.
Dissertation Award Honorable Mention: Dr. Wallace Golding, Debts Passed Due: A Rhetorical History of Black Reparations Advocacy in the United States (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, directed by Dr. John M. Murphy).
Debts Passed Due chronicles the tradition of black reparations advocacy, a tradition as important as it is understudied among rhetoricians. Golding’s fine-grained analysis of a range of rhetors, from Reconstruction-era appeals for land, to Audley “Queen Mother” Moore’s black nationalism, to the more recent efforts by Ta-Nehesi Coates, unveils the manifold persuasive strategies and tactics that have motivated a “process of repair aimed at ameliorating systemic injustices.”
Mentor Award Winner: Ekaterina Haskins (The Pennsylvania State University)
Former advisees and current mentees of Ekaterina Haskins unianimously praise her attentiveness, persistence, and care. Additionally, her mentorship has expressed itself in a career-long, concrete investment in ASHR specifically. From long-term presence through membership and conference participation, to the guiding role of editing our journal, to hard work on the steering committee, Haskins has contributed to the development of the history of rhetoric, not just as a field of ideas, but as a community of practice.