John Jasso, Ph.D.

Dr. John J. Jasso is an Associate Professor of Communications, director of the communications program, and director of the Rhetoric and Poetics core sequence in the Department of Communications and Literature at Ave Maria University. His research focuses on the confluence of rhetoric, philosophy, and theology from antiquity to the Middle Ages and the resonance of that confluence in contemporary culture. He is especially interested in the Platonic view of rhetoric as a type of “soul-leading” through words, the evolution of that view in the Catholic intellectual tradition, and the implications of that view for modern communication practices in media, politics, literature, and popular culture in general. Consequently, he is involved in constructing “neo” Platonic and “neo” medieval theories of communication for the purpose of contemporary cultural engagement and criticism.

Dr. Jasso received an M.A. in Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Communication from the University of Pittsburgh.  He then taught interdisciplinary rhetoric in the Department of English at The Pennsylvania State University before taking the opportunity to develop the Communications Program, and then the newly formed Communications and Literature Department, at Ave Maria University as the founding chair.

Dr. Jasso was named a Catholic Media Studies Fellow by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame in 2019 and his work has been recognized with top paper awards from the Media Ecology Association and American Society for the History of Rhetoric. His articles on rhetoric and media have appeared in Listening, Explorations in Media Ecology, Advances in the History of Rhetoric, Rhetorica, and Philosophy & Rhetoric. Dr. Jasso regularly teaches courses in the history of rhetoric, the influence of the Catholic imagination in popular literature and media (often with Dr. Hurley), dialogue and dialectic, public speaking, and Modern Fantasy.

My podcast discussion with Dr. Dauphinais

My Hail Mary Lecture

My McGrath Institute talk

Select Publications:  

• Reclaiming Rhetoric as an Art for Catholic Communications: Classical Patterns for Modern Soul-Leading,” in Catholic Media Studies: Theology and Pedagogy. Eds. Brett Robinson, Alba Sabaté Gauxachs, Caroline Murphy. Barcelona: Blanquerna Observatory on Media, Religion and Culture, 2021. 73-83.
• “A Gramma of Motives: The Drama of Plato’s Tripartite Psychology,” Philosophy & Rhetoric, 53.2 (2020): 157-180.  "Sympathy for the Devil: The Myth of Plato as the Enemy of Rhetoric,” Rhetorica, 37.4 (2019): 351–381.
• “Isocrates’ Panphilosophicus: Reading the Panathenaicus as a Rapprochement with Academic Philosophy,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric, 22:1 (2019): 27-50.
• “A Simple Twist of Faith: Adapting Catholic Thought to Popular Hierarchies,” Listening: Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture 53.2 (2018): 102-114.
• “Archaic Argument: Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the Problem of First Principles,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 18.1 (2015): 53-68.
• “Inklings of Action: Understanding the Performative Nature of Fictive Speech Acts through the Critical Works of Tolkien and Lewis,” Listening: Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture 50.3 (2015): 171-179.
• “Merging Pedagogies and Converging Media: Classical Meets Critical in the Digital Age,” Explorations in Media Ecology 12.1&2 (2013): 121–134.
• “Appointments and Disappointments: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Relationship Between President Obama, Catholics, and Their Church,” coauthor Dr. Anthony Wachs, in The Making of Barack Obama: The Politics of Persuasion.  Eds. Matthew Abraham and Erec Smith, Parlor Press, 2013. 65-90.