Professor Emeritus Anderson Wins National Communication Award

John Dennis Anderson, Associate Professor Emeritus in Communication Studies, has won the Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies from the National Communication Association (NCA).

The award is given annually for outstanding published research and creative scholarship in interpretation and performance studies during the previous three-year period.

Anderson was honored for his article, “The Medium is the Mother: Elsie McLuhan, Elocution and Her Son Marshall,” published in Text & Performance Quarterly in 2017. He received his award on November 16 at the NCA 105th Annual Convention in Baltimore.

Elsie McLuhan, mother of Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, trained with two 1906 Emerson College graduates, according to Anderson, who has continued his research on Elsie with a grant from the Whiting Foundation. Anderson will perform as Marshall McLuhan for a Chautauqua in Oklahoma in May/June 2020.

This is not Anderson’s first NCA honor. In 2013, he was co-recipient of the NCA’s Leslie Irene Coger Award for Distinguished Performance, and in 2014, he won the Performance Studies Division Distinguished Service Award.

NCA is the largest communication association in the United States, serving scholars, teachers, and practitioners.