Chris Holcomb

Associate Professor

First Year English Director

Office: 001/514 Humanities Office Building
(803) 777-2537 or 2350
holcombc@mailbox.sc.edu

Education

Ph.D., University of Texas, 1995

Specialization Areas

• History of Rhetoric,
• Humor Studies,
• Stylistics,
• Discourse Studies

Recent Courses

See Course Descriptions for detailed information.

• ENHL 460 Advanced Composition
• ENGL 792 Classical Rhetoric
• ENGL 793 Medieval to Modern Rhetoric
• ENGL 890 Performative Stylistics
  

Current Research Project(s)

A book on Performative Stylistics in progress.

Publications

Books

Mirth Making: The Rhetorical Discourse on Jesting in Early Modern England. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001.

Selected Articles

“‘Anyone Can Be President’: Figures of Speech, Cultural Forms, and Performance." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 37 (2007): 71-96.

“Performative Stylistics and the Question of Academic Prose.” Rhetoric Review 24.2 (April 2005): 188-206.

“‘The Crown of All Our Study’: Improvisation in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31 (Summer 2001): 53-72.

“‘Man in a Painted Garment’: The Social Functions of Jesting in Elizabethan Rhetoric and Courtesy Manuals.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 13-4 (2000): 429-455.

Review of David Marsh’s Lucian and the Latins in Neo-Latin News 57 (1999): 3-4.

“A Class of Clowns: Spontaneous Joking in Computer-Assisted Discussions.” Computers and Composition 14 (1997): 3-18.

“Kings and Counselors: The Politics of Francis Bacon’s Rhetorical Theory.” Philological Quarterly 74 (1995): 227-247.