Robin Clair

Research

Professor Clair's primary research interests are in organizational communication, rhetoric, and cultural studies. She has written extensively on issues such as pay inequity, sexual harassment, work socialization, and diversity. Recently, Professor Clair was named Diversity Fellow by Purdue University. She teaches Diversity at Work (COM 328) at the undergraduate level and Ethnography, Narrative Theory, Historical Criticism and Race/Ethnicity, Class, Gender/ Sexual Orientation classes at the graduate levels. She has won numerous awards for her research including several Top Paper Awards, Research Article of the Year Award, two Book of the Year Awards, and The Golden Anniversary Award. She was named to Simmons Institute for Leadership and Change, Boston and has contributed to public policy statements provided to Washington D.C. through the Consortium of Social Science Association. Professor Clair has been a member of several editorial boards (e.g., Communication Theory, Communication Studies, Women’s Studies in Communication, Western Journal of Communication, Journal of Applied Communication and others) and reviewed for numerous other scholarly journals. She is currently sitting on several editorial boards including the Purdue University Press Editorial Board. Professor Clair is a member of the Organizational Communication division of NCA and is Past Chair of the Ethnography Division of NCA. Professor Clair has also received awards for creative work, especially her poetry, and was named Fellow to the Center of Artistic Endeavors at Purdue University.

Books

• Clair, R.P., Bell, S., Hackbarth, K., McConnell, M. & Mathes, S. (2008) Why Work: The Philosophy and Rhetoric of Work through the Ages. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
• Clair, R.P. (Editor) (2003). Expressions of Ethnography: Novel Approaches to Qualitative Methods. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
• Clair, R.P. (1998). Organizing Silence: A World of Possibilities. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.

Representative Publications

• Clair, R.P. (2006). Narratives in the Old Neighborhood: An ethnographic study of a neighborhood’s stories. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(6), 1244-1261.
• Clair R.P. & Kunkel, A.W. (1998) Unrealistic Realities: Child Abuse and the Aesthetic Resolution." Communication Monographs, 65, 24-46.
• Clair, R.P. (1994). Resistance and Oppression as a Self-Contained Opposite: An Organizational Communication Analysis of One Man's Story of Sexual Harassment. Western Journal of Communication, 58, 235-262.
• Clair, R.P. (1993).The Use of Framing Devices to Sequester Organizational Narratives: Hegemony and Harassment. Communication Monographs, 60, 113-136.

Recent Graduate Courses Taught

COM 610R: Rhetoric of Work (Fall 2008)
COM 674E: Culture and Ethnography (Fall2009)
COM610N: Narrative Theory (Fall 2007)
COM610R: Rhetoric of Race, Class Gender (Spring 2007)