Valerie Palmer-Mehta, Ph.D.

Where Passion Meets Purpose

I’m a communication professor passionate about uncovering the powerful stories in women’s political rhetoric—from global icons to local leaders. Through research, teaching, and mentoring, I’m dedicated to inspiring students and sparking meaningful conversations that extend beyond the classroom. Explore my work and discover the stories, ideas, and people shaping our social world.

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A Sampling of Work...

The Monstrous Mother: Unexpected Evil in Myth, Literature, and Popular Culture (Palgrave Studies in Monstrosity) , Edited by Anna Chiara Corradino & Alessandro Grilli, 20 October 2025. • 20th October 2025

Sexy Mothers Not Wanted: An Ideological Analysis of U.S. Media Representations of Mothers in the Sex Industry, with Dr. Jennifer M. Heisler

Examines how sex worker mothers are represented navigating cultural tensions of motherhood via ideologies of stigma, mothering as a consumerist practice, and invisible labor.

The Sage International Encyclopedia of Politics and Gender, Edited by Lia Roberts 25 September 2025. • 25th September 2025

Women's Political Agency

Women have long sought to influence the world around them in meaningful ways. Yet gaining agency has not been easy, uniform, or linear for women, especially in the public sphere.

A Companion to First Ladies, Edited by Katherine A.S. Sibley, Wiley-Blackwell, 2016. • 1st September 2025

Sarah Polk: Ideas of Her Own

The wife of the eleventh president of the United States, Sarah Polk is considered one of the most influential first ladies in history and a forebear of the current activist first ladies. Accounts indicate that she did everything in her power to support her husband's political career. In addition to administering the affairs of the White House, Mrs. Polk worked on her husband's political campaigns, networked with key polit...

Communication, Culture and Critique, Vol. 5, Issue 3, 2012, p. 313–332. • 27th August 2025

Theorizing the Role of Courage in Resistance: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Aung San Suu Kyi's ‘Freedom from Fear’ Speech

I explore how Aung San Suu Kyi challenges the epistemological unconscious that guides Western notions of courage.

The Communication Review, 2022, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 1–29. • 27th August 2025

The Hall of Shame: Reconstituting Dominant Masculinities in The New York Times’ Representation of U.S. #MeToo Offenders’ Apologias, with Dr. Chiaoning Su & Dr. Rebecca Mercado Jones

Winner of the 2025 Marion P. Wilson Award

Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, Vol. 13, Issue 3, 2016, p. 287-304. • 14th August 2024

A "Suitably Dead" Woman: Grieving Andrea Dworkin

This article investigates the discursive register through which lives become grievable by focusing on a case study of the discourses surrounding the death of U.S. feminist, Andrea Dworkin.

Women's Studies in Communication, Vol. 32, Issue 2, 2009, p. 151-179. • 14th August 2024

Aung San Suu Kyi and the Rhetoric of Social Protest in Burma

This essay provides a case study of the speech that marks Aung San Suu Kyi's emergence as a leader of the pro-democracy opposition in Burma.

Mothering Outside the Lines: Tales of Boundary Busting Mothers, Edited by Michelann Parr and Bettyann Martin October 2023. • 1st October 2023

Creating a Champion for Women: The Transgressive Maternal Practices of Andrea Dworkin's Mother, Sylvia

Drawing on archival research from Harvard's Schlesinger Library, I examine the transgressive maternal practices of the mother of second wave feminist, Andrea Dworkin.

Women's Studies in Communication, Vol. 40, Issue 4, 2017, p. 359-378. • 1st October 2017

Rising Against the Third Shift: Reclaiming the Postpartum Body in “A Beautiful Body Project," with Dr. Sherianne Shuler

This article examines efforts to reclaim and redefine postpartum embodiment in Jade Beall’s “A Beautiful Body Project."

The Routledge Handbook of Rhetoric and Power, Edited by Nathan Crick, 4 October 2024. • 4th October 2024

A Hestian Defense of the Oikos

This comprehensive investigation into the relationship between rhetoric and power features my study of women's political rhetoric.

Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2022, Vol. 108, Issue 3, p. 292-316. • 22nd June 2022

“It's the Truth About Women—That We Get Lost”: Andrea Dworkin, Public Memory, and Archival Resilience

This analysis of Dworkin's private correspondence with Gloria Steinem provides an interior view of two very public figures.

Southern First Ladies: Culture and Place in White House History, Edited by Katherine A.S. Sibley, University Press of Kansas, 2021. • 20th January 2021

Edith Bolling Wilson: A “Southern” New Woman

Called our "first woman president," First Lady Edith Wilson exhibited a penchant for enlarged opportunities even as she affirmed Southern womanhood.