About
Christina Knopf
Dr. Knopf [pronounced: "nope"] is a professor and the presentation skills coordinator in the Communication & Media Studies Department at the State University of New York (SUNY), Cortland.
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As a rhetorician and sociologist specializing in political communication, Dr. Knopf studies rhetoric of the popular arts (ex., comics, cartoons, letters, films, animations, and shows) for what, and how, it communicates about our socio-political world. Her research explores what pop culture texts can mean to/for their audiences and recognizes the ways in which pop culture interacts with our daily lives. She is particularly interested in visual rhetoric and depictions of war, the military, politics, and campaigns, especially as they intersect with concerns of representation, health, community, and civic engagement. Her scholarship contributes to discussions in rhetoric, communication studies, media studies, sociology, political science, history, gender studies, general semantics, art history, illustration, religious studies, and philosophy.
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A frequent presenter at regional, national, and international academic conferences in the humanities and the social sciences, and the author of scores of scholastic publications, her work has been celebrated through awards from Finger Lakes Community College, SUNY Potsdam, the Eastern Communication Association, and the New York State Communication Association. As a recognized expert in the intersection of politics, the military, and comics, Dr. Knopf has been interviewed for pieces by the Washington Post, Newsy, and Back Issue, in addition to appearing as a guest on podcasts. She has been an invited speaker with the National Parks Services, and Microsoft; for SOAR North Country; at the Border Town Comic-Con in Oregon, and the San Diego Comic Con in California; and, at Radford University, The Ohio State University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and SUNY Potsdam.
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Dr. Knopf is a co-editor of the Routledge Advances in Comics Studies series, an editorial board member of the Home Front Studies journal and a former editorial board member of the Lambda Pi Eta journal. She is a Past President of the New York State Communication Association (NYSCA). She has served as the chair of the Political Communication and the Rhetoric & Public Address interest groups of the Eastern Communication Association, as a member of the National Communication Association (NCA) Convention Committee, and as an affiliate program planner with the NCA, in addition to serving interest group committees in the NCA and in the American Sociological Association. She currently serves as Recording Secretary for the Media Ecology Association.
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A lifelong resident of New York State, she has been part of the SUNY system continuously since 1997 - in the roles of student, staff, and faculty - affiliated with eight of the 64 SUNY campuses.
Education
Dr. Knopf completed her interdisciplinary PhD concentrating in political communication and cultural sociology at the University at Albany in 2005. Her dissertation was a study of "Providence, Presidents, and the Press: Inaugural Rhetoric of Religion in a Historical Perspective." She earned an MA concentrating in political communication from the University at Albany in 2001. Her thesis project, "Power Plays by the Powerless: A Study of Attempted Diffusion of Innovative Reforms by the New York Assembly Minority Conference," was based on a graduate practicum with the New York State Assembly.
She earned a BA majoring in public relations and minoring in journalism from SUNY New Paltz in 2000, and an AA in liberal arts, concentrating in social science, from Finger Lakes Community College in 1998. She also completed a Certificate of Advanced Study in Healthcare Management through SUNY Empire State University in 2023 to support her instruction of health communication and organizational communication and her scholarship in graphic medicine.
Her education provides her with a solid foundation in the humanistic, social scientific, and business traditions in communication studies, and Dr. Knopf continues to advance her education through a variety of professional development opportunities relevant to pedagogy, scholarship, service, and administration.
Work Experience
In August 2017, Dr. Knopf joined the Communication & Media Studies Department at SUNY Cortland. She typically teaches three courses per semester, primarily lower-division public speaking classes in General Education, with other human communication courses as needed. Additionally, she advises approximately 20 students majoring in Communication Studies each semester. She also serves as the Presentation Skills Coordinator, managing curricular content, consistency, and quality, and providing pedagogical support for public speaking and oral communication courses in the major/minor, in General Education, and across the curriculum. From Fall 2023 through Spring 2025, Dr. Knopf served as Assistant Dean in the School of Arts & Sciences - where she reviewed degree applications, worked with students in need of academic support, and enabled a variety of special projects. She also serves on various committees.​
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Previously, Dr. Knopf was a member of the Department of English & Communication, and affiliate faculty to Women's & Gender Studies and to Africana Studies, at SUNY Potsdam from 2006 to 2017. There, she usually taught four classes per semester, mostly upper-division rhetoric and public address courses for Speech Communication majors and minors, including the capstone course in Communication Theory. Additionally, she advised approximately 40-50 students each semester in the Speech Communication major and minor, as well as students in interdisciplinary programs. She also served as the college's Oral Skills Coordinator, Lambda Pi Eta (Delta Omicron) honor society faculty sponsor, SUNY Potsdam Comic Book Club faculty advisor, as a reader on honors and master's theses, and as a faculty director for undergraduate internships. She served terms on the National Endowment for the Humanities advisory board, the Faculty Senate, and the Arts & Sciences Council, among other committees.
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From 2000 to 2005, she was a part-time instructor at the University at Albany. She was an adjunct instructor at Monroe Community College and at Genesee Community College in 2005 and at the College of Saint Rose in 2003. She started her teaching career when she was still in high school, working as a French tutor and recreational swimming instructor.
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Prior to entering higher education full time, she earned experience in technical writing and web design at small telecommunications software companies, in photojournalism at a regional newspaper, in public relations at a college, in local and state-level political campaigning, and in government research and constituent relations with the New York State Assembly.
Research Interests
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​Political Communication
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Civil-Military Studies
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Comics Studies
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Spectral-/Monstros-ities
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Humor Studies
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Civil & Public Religions
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Animation & Cinema Studies
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Rhetorics of Health, Death, & Trauma
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Circus Studies
Teaching Areas
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Political Communication
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Rhetoric & Public Address
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Communication Theory
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Popular Culture
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Public Speaking
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Human Communication
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Media Studies, History, & Criticism
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Professional Communication
Secret Origin Story
As soon as she learned how to write, Christina Knopf wanted to write. Her first opus was a play starring stick puppets of teeth her class made in the first grade. By third grade, she was writing her own children’s stories. By eighth grade, she was sending angsty poetry and clever puns out into the void of rejection. By tenth grade, she was writing short stories about loneliness and romance. And by the eleventh grade, her guidance counselor convinced her the only way she was going to make a living as a writer was as a journalist. (She had more scientific inclinations but was thwarted by the maths.) So, she went off to the local community college to major in communications. She soon discovered that broadcast journalism required more technical skills than she possessed, but that the writing, editing, and layouts for public relations was a lot of fun. So, she changed schools to study PR and journalism.
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A cross between Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane – an intrepid girl news photographer - she soon became fascinated with how men like Lex Luthor get elected president, so she went to graduate school, a breeding ground for supervillains. This turned her from her away from her pre-destiny as an only-child, like Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, to become a superhero. After earning a PhD in sociology and communication, she, like Drs. Jonathan Crane, Harleen Quinzel, and Viktor Fries, became an outcast professor and researcher, struggling to be taken seriously... and constantly complaining that she is cold.
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A student of presidential address, and the child of an army veteran and pop-history fan, Dr. Knopf took an interest in the rhetoric surrounding war, both official and popular. Looking to leverage the combined power of Scarecrow’s horror and Harley’s humor, she eventually became a recognized expert in military cartooning.
This work proved to be her portal to the multiverse of politics of popular culture. Military cartooning led to war movies and comics studies, which led to genre fictions in film and television, which led to spectralities studies... Along the way, these worlds overlapped with broader systems of public memory, satire, visual communication, gender, freakery, spirituality, and more. – from comics to camp, propaganda to protest, and serials to cinema, she looks for the strings tugging at the mediated puppets entertaining us.
Like all supervillains, Dr. Knopf pursued a singular obsession: writing.
And though she now has more than 60 publications, and counting, and more than 130 presented papers, her designs on world domination are repeatedly thwarted by laundry and a mortgage, so she has settled for defeating simulacra of superheroes in her creations as an amateur cosplayer and baker.
Influential Moments, TExts, & People
in Pop Culture/Media
The Challenger space shuttle explosion
The 1986 World Series, Mets win(!)
The release of Nelson Mandela
The first bombs of Operation Desert Storm (Gulf War I)
The OJ Simpson car chase
Impeachment of President Bill Clinton
Al Lewis 1998 gubernatorial campaign
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The Twilight Zone - "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"
M.A.S.H.
Murphy Brown
Lois & Clark​​
Scooby-Doo
The Smurfs
Rainbow Brite, Star Fairies, Rose Petal, The Charmkins
The Simpsons
Saturday Night Live
Night of the Living Dead
Goldfinger
Amadeus
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The Monster at the End of this Book (Little Golden Books)
Oscar's Book (Little Golden Books)
The Babysitters Club series, by Ann M. Martin
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
And The There Were None, by Agatha Christie
"The Cask of the Amontillado," by Edgar Allan Poe
A Study in Scarlet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
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Victor Borge​
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The New Kids on the Block (the phenomenon, not the music)
H.O.R.D.E. Fest