Perry C Cotham

Perry C. Cotham is Professor and Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies at Middle Tennessee State University. He earned both the M. A. and Ph. D. in Speech Communication, with a minor in U. S. History, from Detroit’s Wayne State University. His doctoral dissertation focused on the rhetoric of the New Deal and World War II era. Dr. Cotham has completed post-doctoral studies in religion at Vanderbilt University and in history, political science, and psychology at Middle Tennessee State. He has served as both full-time and adjunct professor in rhetoric and public address, history and political science, and philosophy and ethics at several colleges and universities, especially in the Nashville area: Lipscomb, Belmont, Nashville State, Tennessee State, and MTSU. Cotham has written some twenty published books and many articles in the fields of history and political science, worldviews and religion, philosophy and ethics, and rhetoric and public address. His study of the Tennessee labor movement won the prestigious 1995 “Best Book” award from the Tennessee Historical Society and Tennessee Library Association. His two most recent books in the field of public speaking are: From Pilgrim Pulpit to the Electronic Era: The Varieties of American Religious Communication (Westbow Press, 2014) and In Search of Rhetorical Excellence (BlueDoor Publishing, 2015). Cotham and wife, Glenda, enjoy three children and a number of grandchildren. He has an avid interest in all kinds of collegiate and professional sports and his hobbies include hiking and tennis.