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Alvin Primack

  • Associate Director of Debate
  • Teaching Assistant Professor

Education

  • Communication – PhD, University of Pittsburgh (2022)
  • Communication Studies - MA, California State University, Long Beach (2016)

Biography

Alvin J. Primack is the Associate Director of the William Pitt Debating Union. They have published in some of the fields top journals in the areas of law, instruction, and media representation.

Areas of Interest

Rhetorical Criticism; Media Studies; Childhood Studies; Rhetoric of Law and Inquiry; Psychoanalysis; Queer Theory

Publications

  • Alvin J. Primack. “A First Amendment Profile of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.” In A Frist Amendment Profile of the Supreme Court 2nd. Edition, edited by Kevin Johnson and Craig R. Smith (Forthcoming).
  • Ash, Hillary A., and Alvin J. Primack. “Implementing Universal Design for Learning: Course Design and Management Considerations for Asynchronous and Synchronous Online Courses.” In Diversity in Higher Education Remote Learning: A Practical Guide, edited by Jerome C. Branche, Paula K. Davis, and Ellen R. Cohn (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023).
  • Alvin J. Primack. “You are not the Father: Rhetoric, Settler Colonial Curiosity, and Federal Indian Law,” Review of Communication 20, no. 1 (2020): 27-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2019.1707268. 
  • Alvin J. Primack. “First Amendment Studies in Arkansas,” (Book Review) First Amendment Studies 53, no. 1 (2019): 130-1. https://doi.org/10.1080/21689725.2019.1621447.
  • Alvin J. Primack. “Youth Sexting and the First Amendment: Rhetoric and Child Pornography Doctrine in the Age of Translation,” New Media & Society 20, no. 8 (2018): 2917-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1461444817737297.
  • Brandon Fletcher and Alvin J. Primack. “Driving Toward Disability Rhetorics: Narratives of Disability in Mad Max: Fury Road,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 34, no. 4 (2017): 344-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1329540.
  • Alvin J. Primack and Kevin A. Johnson. “Student Cyberbullying Inside the Digital Schoolhouse Gate: Toward a Standard for Determining Where a ‘School’ Is,” First Amendment Studies 51, no. 1 (2017): 30-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/21689725.2016.1278177.

Presentations

  • January 10, 2020 - 3:00pm: Agora Speaker Series: A Poison More Deadly than Arsenic: Judicial Authority and Childhood in Euro-American Obscenity Doctrine from 1708-1896
  • May 16, 2022 - 12:00pm: Dissertation Defense: Al Primack
  • October 28, 2016 - 3:00pm: "AGORA:Department of Communication Graduate Student pre-conference presentations"
  • September 29, 2017 - 3:00pm: Agora Speaker Series: Politics, Social Movements, and the Law
  • February 23, 2018 - 3:00pm: Agora Speaker Series: Department of Communication, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences Summer Research Fellows
  • April 5, 2018 - 12:00pm: Cultural Studies GSO Graduate Student Symposium

Courses Taught

  • Argument
  • Interpersonal Communication
  • Media and Consumer Culture
  • Media in Society
  • Public Speaking
  • Rhetoric in Society
  • Skills in Communication

Awards

Competitive Paper Awards

  • Top Student Paper, 2018, National Communication Association, (Freedom of Expression). Salt Lake City, UT 2018.
  • Top Student Paper, 2017, National Communication Association, Dallas, TX, 2017 (Freedom of Expression)
  • David Eschelman Award Winner, 1st Place Debut Category, 2017, Broadcast Education Association, Las Vegas, NV, 2017 (Law and Policy)

Academic Honors

  • Honors Convocation, 2017, 2018, University of Pittsburgh
  • Graduate Dean’s List, 2016, California State University, Long Beach 
  • President’s List, 2012-2014, California State University, Long Beach 
  • First Amendment Scholar Award, 2014, California State University, Long Beach 
  • Student Recognition Award, 2012, Copper Mountain College, Joshua Tree 

Fellowships and Scholarships

  • K. Leroy Irvis Fellowship, 2016-17, University of Pittsburgh
  • Jack Williams Fellowship, 2015-16, Center for First Amendment Studies, California State University, Long Beach
  • Jerry Mandel Scholarship, 2013-14, California State University, Long Beach
  • CSU Future Scholars Scholarship, 2013, California State University, Long Beach 
  • Jon and John Scholarship, 2013 California State University, Long Beach 
  • Carl Bovero Award Scholarship, 2012, Pacific Southwest Collegiate Forensics Association 
  • Cultural Artifact Scholarship, 2011, Pacific Southwest Collegiate Forensics Association