Brian Gabrial, Ph.D.

I retired from Concordia after joining the faculty in 2004 after receiving my Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Before joining the Department of Journalism, I worked as a television newscast producer.

Educaton

Ph.D. Mass Communication, University of Minnesota
M.A. Mass Communication, University of Minnesota
B.A. English Literature, Creighton University 

Areas of research or journalism production interest

My primary research area is journalism history and its relationship to power and the 19th-century press. This research focuses on issues of nationalism, race, and gender in 19th-century U.S. and Canada.

An important secondary scholarship concerns literary journalism and non-fiction. 

Courses taught

Book

The Press and the Slavery in America, 1791-1859: The Melancholy Effect of Popular Excitement (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2016)

Journal articles

"The Ammo for the Canon: What Literary Journalism Teachers Teach," Literary Journalism Studies (Spring 2017)

“From Haiti to Nat Turner: Racial Panic Discourse during the Nineteenth Century Partisan Press Era ” (American Journalism, Fall 2013).

Book chapters

"A Moral Panic on the Plains? Press Culpability and the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee," in After the War: The Press in a Changing America, 1865-1900, David Sachsman, et al (eds). (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Press, 2017).

“Alarming Intelligence”:  Sensationalism in Newspapers  after the Raids at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and St. Albans, Vermont.”in Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, Stunts, Hatred, and Disasters: Sensationalism in 19th Century Reporting, David Sachsman, et al. (eds), (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Press, 2013).

Conference Presentations

2017

"Words of Consequence: William Seward's 'Irrepressible Conflict' Speech on the Road to Harper's Ferry," Popular Culture/American Culture National Conference, San Diego, CA

2016

"The Platform Collapses: Politicians, Conventions, and Editors and the Death of the Democratic Party," Symposium on the 19th-century press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, University of Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN

"Reloading the 'Canon': What Literary Journalism Educators Teach Part II," Eleventh International Conference for Literary Journalism Studies, Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

"Friend or Foe? It All Depends: Taking a Look Backwards at the Common Enemy Effect in News Media," Joint conference of the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New York University, New York

2015

"An Experiment in Stephen Crane”: WillaCather’s Portrait of the Artist Dying Young," Tenth International Conference for Literary Journalism Studies, St. Thomas University, Minneapolis, Minnesota

"Fashion Statement!: from Denmark Vesey to Trayvon Martin, the Press, Politics, and Polemics about Black Dress," Joint conference of the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New York University, New York

2014

“Text, Lies, and Oil on Canvas?  Creating the myth and memory of John Brown inpopular culture,” with Dr. Jennifer Moore, University of Maine, Joint Conference of the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New York University, New York

2013    

“Residual Oralities as Literary Journalism: Memories of the Massacres at Sand Creek 1864 and Wounded Knee 1890,” Eighth International Association for Literary Journalism Studies Annual Conference, Tampere, Finland.

“The Ammo for the Canon: What Literary Journalism Edcuators Teach,” Eighth International Association for Literary Journalism Studies Annual Conference, Tampere, Finland.,

“Straight eyes for the gay guys (and gals): How mainstream newspapers use familiar tropes to introduce gay culture to a straight audience,” PCA/ACA Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.

“The Lynching of George Smith or How Michel Foucault Meets Rough Justice on the Great Plains of America” Joint conference of the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New York University, New York

2012    

“The Burden of Slavery in America and ‘INCENDIARY PUBLICATIONS’:  From Unanimity to Animus, the Southern Editorial Fight to Silence the Media about Slavery,”Joint conference of the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New York University, New York

2011

“Crane, Hemingway and García Márquez Adrift at Sea or Re-Imagining their “Subtle Brotherhood,” Sixth International Association for Literary Journalism Studies Annual Conference, Brussels, Belgium.