Rate My Professor Jay Childers

Childers specializes in political rhetoric, with a focus on the rhetorical power of physical violence. His research examines the persuasive impact of abolitionist John Brown's 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry to fight slavery, Brown's legacy for modern supporters of political violence, and the public reception of Brown's post-conviction courtroom speech. He is completing a book on the transmission of that speech, arguing it decisively shaped understandings of Brown's antislavery actions. Childers stresses that violence functions as rhetoric, capable of achieving perpetrators' goals, as seen in Brown's indirect contribution to the Civil War and slavery's end. In 2012, he published The Evolving Citizen: American Youth and the Changing Norms of Democratic Engagement (Pennsylvania State University Press), analyzing over 16,000 pages of high school newspapers from 1965 to 2010 across metropolitan areas including Boston, Houston, North Kansas City, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, and Washington, D.C. The book reveals shifts in youth civic engagement toward volunteering, donations, and political consumerism over traditional voting and letter-writing. In 2026, Childers was appointed editor-in-chief of Rhetoric & Public Affairs, a journal on public discourse history, theory, and criticism. He previously chaired the National Communication Association's Political Communication Division in 2015. Childers provides expert analysis on contemporary political violence.