Doug Coulson
Associate Professor of English
- Baker Hall 145J
- 412-268-4857
Area of Study
Pre-Modern Studies, Professional Writing, Rhetoric
Bio
My research explores how legal language shapes justice, identity, and power. More broadly, I’m interested in argumentation and advocacy, law and the humanities, the relationship between rhetoric and violence, democratic deliberation and demagoguery, classical rhetoric, and comparative and historical methods. Across my work, I aim to foreground the historical and rhetorical conditions through which language includes and excludes, persuades and silences, celebrates and condemns.
I’m currently working on a book that explores demagoguery in judicial writing. In my most recently published book, Judicial Rhapsodies: Rhetoric and Fundamental Rights in the Supreme Court (Amherst, 2023), I examine the laudatory, even operatic, forms of writing Supreme Court justices have used to justify fundamental rights decisions, arguing that such writing is not an aberration but a central feature of judicial discourse. My first book, Race, Nation, and Refuge: The Rhetoric of Race in Asian American Citizenship Cases (SUNY Press, 2017), traces how the early United States naturalization system used racialized notions of threat and kinship to shape citizenship law. My essays have appeared in Rhetorica, Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Legal Communication & Rhetoric, The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives, and University of Miami Race and Social Justice Law Review.
Before pursuing my Ph.D., I received my J.D. from Tulane Law School and practiced as a litigator in a large national law firm. I remain a licensed attorney in Texas and author the multi-volume West’s Texas Practice Guide: Business and Commercial Litigation and updates to the multi-volume Texas Business Litigation: Forms and Commentary.
Archival repository website for Race, Nation, and Refuge: https://racenationandrefuge.com/
Education
- Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin
- J.D., Tulane Law School
- M.A., The University of Texas at Austin
- M.A., Oklahoma City University
- B.A., Oklahoma City University
Publications
Judicial Rhapsodies: Rhetoric and Fundamental Rights in the Supreme Court (Amherst, 2023) (Open Access)