Bryan Crable

Founding Dean
College of Human Development Culture and Media

Bryan Crable, Ph.D., is Founding Dean of the College of Human Development, Culture, and Media at Seton Hall University. Prior to that appointment, Dr. Crable served as Professor of Communication/Rhetorical Studies and Founding Director of the Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society (WFI) at Villanova University. Through the activities of the WFI, Dr. Crable helped highlight and celebrate the connection between communication and social justice—and helped support a number of programs aimed at diversifying higher education. In addition to his administrative and disciplinary service, Dr. Crable is a noted scholar of rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke and American novelist and critic Ralph Ellison, both of whom were the focus of his book, Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke: At the Roots of the Racial Divide (University of Virginia Press, 2012). More broadly, Dr. Crable’s research engages the intersection of rhetorical theory and rhetorics of race, and in recent years has increasingly focused on the ritual construction and defense of whiteness. His forthcoming book, White Sacraments, therefore represents his attempt to retheorize whiteness from a radically new perspective. The book, which is nearing publication, draws upon archival materials from both Ralph Ellison and Jane Ellen Harrison to recast American white supremacy as a sacramental (not simply sacrificial) ritual structure and practice. A committed teacher-scholar, Dr. Crable has consistently brought this scholarship into his classrooms, and has, in turn, been able to cite his students’ work and insights within his publications, including White Sacraments. As a result of these efforts, his teaching and mentorship have also been recognized with Villanova University’s 2021 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Teaching Award, three nominations for the National Communication Association’s top teaching award, and the 2016 Faculty Mentor Award from Villanova University’s Honors Program.