Martin Law is Faculty in Communication Studies at North Hennepin Community College in Minneapolis, MN. Previously, he served as an Assistant Professor, Public Speaking Course Coordinator, and Co-Director of the USU Communication Lab in the Department of Communication Studies and Philosophy at Utah State University. He completed a PhD and MA in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University.
His research centers on Black studies, disability studies, sound studies, and rhetorical theory. He has taught basic courses in communication studies and linguistic anthropology; topics courses in subjects like gender and science studies; and graduate seminars in pedagogy and cultural studies. He is developing courses in table-top gaming and sports rhetoric for the game studies certificate at NHCC. He is also developing an institute for disability-centered public speaking pedagogy.
His dissertation project, “Living and Dying in Democratic Disharmony: Protest Rhetoric in the Struggles for Disability Justice and Black Lives” argues that a relationship with the noisy, the ineloquent, and the untimely through Black disability justice is necessary for imagining radical futures.
He completed an M.A. in Rhetoric and Public Culture at Indiana University with a research focus on myth-making and race. Prior to that, he earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota where he concurrently worked as a research assistant in the U of MN Psychoacoustics Laboratory investigating the physiological and psychological factors contributing to consonance and dissonance perception in human listeners.
Throughout his academic career, Martin Law has participated in research across disciplines and modalities including a laboratory research assistantship in the UMN Veterinary Diagnostic Lab (exposure to acetyl cholinesterase and respiratory health), quantitative studies in Mass Communication (mobile device usage in mainstream media), and Sociology (“American” self-identity among Christian immigrants from China), qualitative methods in Public History (interviews on gentrification and cultural resistance through music), and archival research in Media (whiteness and queer identity in film, video art, and new media art of the Caribbean diaspora). He is co-founder and co-director (along with Dr. Amanda Lilly) of the USU Communication Lab where he led development of inclusive communication curriculum and pedagogy.
At IU, he served as Chair of the Disability Studies in the Humanities advocacy organization. He was the founding president of the Rhetoric Society of America Student Chapter at IU (“The Ivie League“) where he constituted a unified identity for the newly merged English and Communication rhetoric programs at IU. He served as an Indiana University Graduate School Program for Graduate Student Diversity, Recruitment Emissary, finding ways to bring more BIPOC students to IU for postgraduate study. He has been a participant in the Institute for Rogue Studies since its emergence in 2012.
Martin has also been a community activist since 2004 when he co-founded (with his late father, Moses Eprevel Law) a quarterly forum that translates cross-cultural education into community organizing and anti-racist action hosted by the St. Stephens Community in South Minneapolis. More recently, he worked as an Anti-Racism Policy Trainer, offering practical education to professional and governmental organizations in Monroe County, Indiana. He was the producer of the Black Progressives Podcast analyzing politics and popular culture from the perspective of midwestern Black, queer activists and is the producer/co-host of They Did What to What?, a science communication podcast that introduces audiences to primary sources that shape our popular imagination of human life.
Martin Law, PhD 