The National Communication Association has honored Colorado State University Associate Professor of Communication Studies Thomas R. Dunn with its 2018 Outstanding Book Award for Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past. Dunn will receive the award at the104th NCA conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Friday, November 9.  
The award is presented by NCA’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Communication Studies Division and Caucus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns.  
Queerly Remembered draws from the interdisciplinary fields of rhetorical studies, memory studies, gay and lesbian studies and queer theory to consider both the ephemeral tactics and monumental strategies that GLBTQ communications have used to effect their queer persuasion.  
“At its heart, the book aims to bring to light both the rhetorical and political histories of LGBTQ communities as well as offer practical insights as to how these historical tactics of memory can be used to advance equality and social justice today,” Dunn says. “That my peers in Communication recognize this work as meaningful means the world to me.” 

Associate professor Tom Dunn portrait image
Associate Professor Tom Dunn

The division’s outstanding book award seeks to recognize scholarship that achieves several aims. Of primary interest is scholarship that advances the discipline’s understanding of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer communication studies while making a significant contribution to contemporary scholarship on GLBTQ populations and/or identities.  
Nominations for the award are evaluated by a panel of three GLBTQ scholars, comprised of the current chairs of the Division and the Caucus and one former winner of the award, appointed by the executive committee of the GLBTQ Division. Books must have been published in the last two calendar years. The University of South Carolina Press published Queerly Remembered in 2016.   
Dunn’s research investigates the intersection of GLBT/queer culture, politics, and rhetoric with a focus on public memory and visual rhetoric. He is the winner of several awards, including the 2011 NCA Stephen E. Lucas Publication Award, the 2012 Geral R. Miller Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, the 2014-15 Excellence in Teaching Award from CSU’s College of Liberal Arts, and the 2017 New Investigator award from the Critical/Cultural Studies Division of NCA.