Kyle R. King, Ph.D.

Kyle King
Assistant Professor, English
Director, Writing Commons
Eiche Library, 127

Kyle King is an assistant professor of English, director of the Writing Commons, and coordinator of the Professional Writing minor at Penn State Altoona. He received his BA in English from Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA, in 2010, where he was also a DII Academic All-American on the men’s tennis team. He earned his Ph.D. in English at Penn State University in 2017, specializing in rhetorical studies.

He teaches courses in rhetorical studies, writing studies, sports humanities, and 20th- and 21st-century literature. He primarily writes about the relationship between sports (athletes, organizations, and media) and movements for social change. He has published essays and/or reviews in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication & Sport, International Journal of Sport Communication, Journal of Sport History, Sport in American History, The International Journal of the History of Sport, and Popular Communication. He has twice won the National Communication Association Communication & Sport Division Top Paper Award for essays on the tennis essays of David Foster Wallace (2016) and the Billie Jean King “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match in public memory (2020).

In his courses, he sets out to accomplish four goals:

  • To provide students scaffolded, transferrable skills to help them in other courses;
  • To develop professional skills that will help students’ job prospects;
  • To challenge students to think of themselves as citizens of various civic and professional communities; and
  • To model what it means to be a perennial student by teaching texts and assignments for the first time alongside his students.

Courses Taught:

  • ENGL 15 Rhetoric & Composition
  • ENGL 30 Honors Rhetoric & Composition (Rhetoric of Education, Global/Transnational Rhetoric)
  • ENGL 137H/138T Rhetoric & Civic Life
  • ENGL 183N The Cold War in Literature, Politics, and History
  • ENGL 211W Introduction to Writing Studies
  • ENGL 234 Sports, Ethics, Literature
  • ENGL 250 Peer Tutoring in Writing
  • ENGL 417 The Editorial Process
  • ENGL 471 Rhetorical Traditions (Social Movement Rhetoric)
  • ENGL 487W Senior Seminar (Genre Theory, Social Movement Rhetoric & Literature)