Karlyn Kohrs Campbell

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell is an American academic specializing in rhetorical criticism at the University of Minnesota.

Campbell was born on April 16, 1937, near Blomkest, Minnesota. She attended Willmar High School and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Macalester College, St. Paul, in 1958. She earned a Master of Arts (1959) and a Ph.D. (1968) from the University of Minnesota.

Campbell has taught at the State University of New York at Brockport; the British College in Palermo, Sicily; Macalester College; California State University, Los Angeles; the State University of New York at Binghamton, the University of Kansas, Lawrence, where she was director of the women’s studies program; and at the University of Minnesota, where she chaired the Department of Communication Studies for nine years. She also edited the Quarterly Journal of Speech for three years. She was a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1992.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell is currently a professor at the University of Minnesota where she teaches courses such as Seminar in Rhetorical Criticism, Intro to Rhetorical Criticism, and Rhetoric of Feminism. Her specialties include women in communication, rhetorical theory and criticism, presidential rhetoric, and political campaigns. One of her most famous works in which she incorporates her rhetorical ideas is Agency: Promiscuous and Protean. In this essay, she attempts to proclaim the meanings of agency by referencing Sojourner Truth at the 1851 woman's rights convention. This is just one of the many examples in which she incorporates her interest in feminism and feminist rhetoric into her own works.

Kohrs Campbell is the recipient of numerous awards for her distinguished work including the Francine Merritt Award for contributions to women, and the University of Minnesota Distinguished Woman Scholar Award. She also has received the NCA’s Donald H. Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education, the National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar Award, the Ehninger Award for Distinguished Rhetorical Scholarship, the Winans-Wichelns Book Award, and the Charles Woolbert Award for Scholarship of Exceptional Quality. Due to her success, the Karlyn Kohrs Campbell Award is presented to the author(s) of the Top Paper submitted to the Rhetorical Theory and Criticism Interest Group at the Central States Communication Association Convention.