Identifying (with) Hate: Engaging Self-Reflection in the Communication Classroom to Combat Hatred

The communication classroom has long explored various matters of speech. More recently, conversations about hate speech have emerged here. However, less attention has been paid to how hate is mobilized through communication. Thus, this course explores the communicative nature of hatred by interrogating its role in the formation of social identity and perpetuation of exclusionary discourses in our rhetorical landscape. Students engage in self-reflection by embracing theories of social identity, intergroup communication, and rhetoric to examine the concept of hatred while assignments improve students' comprehension of hate's communicative power, mobilizing potential, and constituting capacities. Course: This course is an upper-level undergraduate special topics course titled "The Mobilization of Hate." It can be situated in the recurring communication curriculum. Alternatively, content could be modified to serve as a themed version of other courses. Objectives: Students should be better equipped to: (1) recognize how intergroup formation centered on hate helps to constitute individuals' social identities; (2) comprehend how discourses of hate proliferate in public spaces; (3) understand various communicative processes that give rise to acts of hate; (4) articulate the individual, group-based, and rhetorical features of hate; and (5) recognize the personal, social, and rhetorical implications of the mobilization of hate.