PETER K. BSUMEK is Professor in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University, where he has served as the director of the MA program in Communication and Advocacy and coordinator of the undergraduate interdisciplinary Environmental Studies minor program. He earned a B.S. in Political Science at the University of Utah and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Communication at the University of Pittsburgh.

Bsumek’s research and teaching focus on rhetoric, advocacy, and decision-making processes, with a specific emphasis in environmental communication and social justice. He is the 2014 recipient of the J. Robert Cox Award for Environmental Communication and Civic Engagement. He has also won the Christine Oravec Research Award (2014) and Tarla Rai Peterson Book Award in the Environmental Communication (2016). He is a founding member of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA).

Bsumek regularly teaches undergraduate courses in environmental communication & advocacy, social movement rhetoric, and communication theory and graduate courses in advocacy and environmental communication.

Recent publications include:

Jenkins, E. and Bsumek, P. (forthcoming). Greta Thunberg’s gestures: Shame and the affective reception of a climate icon. Rhetoric and Public Affairs.

Jenkins, E. and Bsumek, P. (forthcoming) Contempt, in Joshua Barnett, Ed., Ecological feelings: A rhetorical compendium. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.

Schneider, J. and Trencher, G. with Bsumek, P., Gellert, P., Mattiolli, G., Monios, J., Newell, P., Peeples, J., Wesselin, J., Williams, E., Wishart, R., and Youriev, B. (forthcoming). “Chapter 3: Coal, Steel, Railroads, Transportation, and Utilities.” In J. Timmons Roberts, Carlos R. S. Milani, Jennifer Jacquet, and Christan Downie Eds., Global Assessment of Climate Obstruction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press USA.

Bsumek, P., Peeples, J., and Schneider, J. (2024). Democratic melodrama and authoritarian melodrama. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 110 (1), 130-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2023.2293505

Aleman, C., Bsumek, P., Chirindo, K., Peeples, J., Schneider, J., Tarin, C., Thomas, M., and Schwarze, S. Eds. (2022). Communication, race, and outdoor spaces. Lausanne: Frontiers Media SA. doi: 10.3389/978-2-88976-903-2

Aleman, C., Bsumek, P., Chirindo, K., Peeples, J., Schneider, J., Tarin, C., Thomas, M., and Schwarze, S. (2022). Editorial (Introduction): Communication, race, and outdoor spaces. Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication, 7:966343. Doi: 10:3389/fcomm.2022.966343.

Carroll, J. and Bsumek, P. (2021). “All this regulatory uncertainty in the air”: The indispensability of public hearings in guarding and guiding public deliberation. Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication, 6:675218. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2021.675218

Bsumek, P., Schwarze, S., Peeples, J. and Schneider, J. (2019). Strategic gestures in Bill McKibben’s climate change rhetoric. Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication, 4:40. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2019.00040 

Bsumek, P. (2018). Communication and neoliberalism. In Dana Cloud (Ed) Oxford Encyclopedia of Communication and Critical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.583 

Schnieder, J., Scwarze, S., Bsumek, P., and Peeples, J. (2016). Under pressure: Coal industry rhetoric and neoliberalism. London: Palgrave MacMillan UK. Tarla Rai Peterson Outstanding Environmental Communication Book of the Year, 2016. Reviewed in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication Theory, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, and The Energy Journal.

Bsumek, P., Schnider, J., Schwarz, S., and Peeples, J. (2014). Corporate Ventriloquism: Corporate advocacy, the coal industry, and the appropriation of voice (21-43).  In Jennifer Peeples and Steven Depoe (Eds.).  Environmental Communication and Voice. London: Palgrave MacMillan UK.  2014 Christine L. Oravec Research Award. 

Peeples, J., Bsumek, P., Schwarze, S., and Schneider, J. (2014). Industrial Apocalyptic: Neoliberalism, Coal, and the Burlesque Frame. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 17 (2), 227-254. 

Schwarze, S., Peeples, J., Schneider, J., and Bsumek, P. (2014).  Environmental melodrama, coal, and the politics of sustainable energy in The Last Mountain. International Journal of Sustainable Development, 17 (2), 108-122.

Bsumek, P.  (2009).  Debate as Disease: The Idea of Debate in the Discourse of the Dialogue and Deliberation Movement. Contemporary Argumentation and Debate: The Journal of the Cross-Examination Debate Association. 30, 1-29.