Interpersonal Communication faculty teaching and research reflects the traditions of the field of interpersonal communication while also participating in the department's interdisciplinary PhD program that beckons us to engage intellectual traditions in a variety of disciplines. Major areas of research include, among others, gender and communication, interpersonal influence, discourses of hate, anti-hate discourses, race and social discourse, family communication, and identity and communication. Across these areas faculty pursue an understanding of communication practices that are grounded in the everyday practices and understandings of social actors. This focus on grounded theorizing connects us in important conceptual and theoretical ways with colleagues in organizational communication, cultural studies, and media studies. These interdisciplinary connections and conversations mutually enrich all areas of the department. For example, the role of narratives and myth in the production of everyday racism, sexism, and hetero-normativity may be studied by faculty in interpersonal communication, organizational communication, performance studies, media and cultural studies, and rhetorical studies.