Sarah J. Kornfield is the Guy Vander Jagt ’53 Professor of Communication and director of women’s and gender studies. A rhetorical critic who studies public persuasion in US politics, television and religion, Dr. Kornfield is the author of several books, including Watching Women: Femininity on TV (2025) and Invoking the Fathers: Dangerous Metaphors and Founding Myths in Congressional Politics (2024), and numerous research articles. 

She is also the GRACE Project Director at Hope College, managing a FIPSE Grant to leverage the ancient art of rhetoric as a tool for modern civic life.

Download Dr. Kornfield’s CV 

Areas of expertise

• Rhetorical criticism — How to interrogate a piece of public culture, working to make sense of how it functions in our society
• Rhetorical theory — Historical and contemporary understandings of how humans publicly communicate
• Civil Discourse, Civic Engagement, and Democratic Deliberation — How humans disagree well and make mutually beneficial decisions within democracies
• Feminist theory — Working for a future free of sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression

Education

• Ph.D., communication arts and sciences and women’s studies, The Pennsylvania State University, 2012
• M.A., communication, Texas A&M University, 2009
• B.A., communication and English literature, Wheaton College, 2007

Selected Publications

• Feminism and Feminist Movements in America, editor, Bloomsbury Press 2026
• Watching Women: Femininity on TV, De Gruyter Press, 2025
• Invoking the Fathers: Dangerous Metaphors and Founding Myths in Congressional Politics, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024
• Contemporary Rhetorical Criticism, Strata Publishing, 2021
• "Prophesying a Feminist Story: Sarah Bessey and the Evangelical Pulpit,” with former student Lindsay Hayes, Journal of Communication & Religion, 2020
• “Listening to our Preaching Foremothers: A Rhetorical History,” Mutuality Magazine, 2020
• “Televisual Pregnancy Beauty,” Feminist Media Studies, 2019
• “Revise and Resubmit! But How?” in Explanation Points: Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition (edited by John R. Gallagher and D Nicole DeVoss), 2018
• “Fixating on the Stasis of Fact: Debating ‘Having it All’ in U.S. Media,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2017
• “Speaking in the Language of Women: Second- and Third-wave Metaphors,” Women & Language, 2017.
• “The Language of Gender,” with Nicolette DeSantis, in GenderSpectives: Reflections on Gender from a Communication Point-of-View (edited by Nickesia Gordon and Laura Finley), Cambridge University Press, 2017

Outside the college

Outside of her teaching and research, Dr. Kornfield runs half marathons, cherishes her precious chihuahua, bakes massive chocolate croissants, eats cheese like it comprises its own food group, fellowships with Pillar Church and enjoys life with her beloved husband and their two sons.