Rate My Professor Michelle Holling

California State University, San Marcos

Communications Media and Communication Studies Speech and Public Speaking Rhetoric Cultural Studies Gender Studies

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5.04/23/2026

A true mentor who cares about success.

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About Michelle

Michelle Holling, Ph.D., is Full Professor of Communication & Media Studies at California State University, San Marcos, within the Communications faculty. She earned a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary Communication from Arizona State University, an M.A. in Communication from San Francisco State University, and a B.A. in Communication from San Francisco State University. Holling joined the CSUSM faculty in the Department of Communication in May 2007, was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor in June 2009, and promoted to Full Professor in June 2015. She has served as Department Chair and contributes to programs such as the Critical Intercultural Communication Minor and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Holling's research focuses on Chican@-Latin@ vernacular discourse, testimonio and gendered violence, and womyn of color in academe, including intersectional microaggressions. She co-edited Race(ing) Intercultural Communication: Racial Logics in a Colorblind Era (Routledge, 2016, with Dreama G. Moon) and Latina/o Discourse in Vernacular Spaces: Somos de Una Voz? (Lexington Press, 2011, with Bernadette M. Calafell). Key publications include '20/20 in 2020?: Refractive Vision, 45, and White Supremacy' (Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2021, with D.G. Moon), ''White Supremacy in Heels': (white) Feminism, White Supremacy, and Discursive Violence' (Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2020, with D.G. Moon), 'Rhetorical Contours of Violent Frames and the Production of Discursive Violence' (Critical Studies in Media Communication, 2019), '"You Intimidate Me" as a Microaggressive Controlling Image to Discipline Womyn of Color Faculty' (Southern Communication Journal, 2019), and 'So My Name is Alma. I Am the Sister of . . .': A Feminicide Testimonio of Violence and Violent Identifications (Women’s Studies in Communication, 2014). Her chapter 'Digital Testimonios of and Witnessing to Salma Hayek and America Ferrera’s Disclosures of Sexual Harassment & Assault' (Routledge International Handbook of Communication and Gender, 2021, with R. Alvarado) received the NCA Outstanding Book Chapter Award (2021), while 'Intersectionalities in the Fields of Chicana Feminism' (De-Whitening Intersectionality, 2020) earned the NCA Outstanding Article Award (2022). Earlier, 'El Simpático boxer: Underpinning Chicano Masculinity with a Rhetoric of Familia in Resurrection Blvd' (Western Journal of Communication, 2006) won the B. Aubrey Fisher Outstanding Journal Article Award (2007). Holling delivered the WSCA 2018 Presidential Address, 'Centralizing Marginality, Marginalizing the Center' (Western Journal of Communication, 2018), advancing critical rhetorical scholarship on race, identity, and violence in Communications.