Please join me in congratulating Keon Pettiway, who successfully defended his dissertation on the afternoon of May 24, 2016 in Caldwell M-8 before an audience of peers, friends, colleagues, and faculty.

Keon’s dissertation, “‘A New African in the World’: A rhetorical study of Kwame Nkrumah’s visual strategy for shaping postcolonial nationhood,” is a theoretically sophisticated, well-researched study of administrative portraiture of Nkrumah and the crucial role such portraiture played — and continues to play — in constituting post-colonial, pan-African, and African diasporic identities and nation branding.  

Keon’s committee, Dr. Victoria Gallagher (chair), Dr. Melissa Johnson, Dr. Sarah Stein, and Dr. Rebecca Walsh, were impressed with the breadth and strength of the study’s contributions.

During his time at NC State, Keon has received several university-wide recognitions and was recently featured in a story on the Graduate School’s home page:

https://grad.ncsu.edu/news/2016/04/phd-candidate-recreates-king-speech/

Dr. Pettiway will begin his academic career in the Fall of 2016 as a tenure-track assistant professor of Communication at Eastern Michigan University.

Congratulations Dr. Pettiway!!