COMO, James

Dr. James ComoCommunication consultant, lecturer, writer and teacher, James Como holds advanced degrees in medieval English literature (Fordham University), in Public and Group Communication (Queens College), and in Language, Literature and Rhetoric (Columbia University) and is Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric and Public Communication at York College (CUNY) where, upon joining the faculty in 1968, he established the Speech discipline.

A founding member of the New York C. S. Lewis Society (1969), his latest book on C.S. Lewis is Why I Believe Narnia: Thirty-three Essays and Reviews on the Life and Work of C. S. Lewis. His Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis is a ground-breaking study of Lewis as a rhetorician, and his Remembering C. S. Lewis is a benchmark biographical anthology now in its third edition (and fourth decade). He also has articles on Lewis in such journals as The Wilson Quarterly and The New Criterion. He has been an on-air commentator for PBS on The Question of God, for The Hallmark Channel on Beyond Narnia, for the BBC’s De-coding Narnia, and for Day of Discovery’s C. S. Lewis: The Reluctant Convert.

His contributions to rhetorical theory and criticism have been at international conferences (“Domain Theory” on comparative rhetoric, for the International Society for the History of Rhetoric meeting in Poland), in Proceedings (“Elitism at the Core: Dare We Call it Rhetoric?” the University of North Texas Press), and as journalism. As a credentialed foreign journalist Dr. Como covered the landmark Peruvian elections of 1990 (“Prolonging Peruvian Solitude,” “The Hero Story-Teller: Mario Vargas Llosa and Peruvian Political Culture” for National Review). At noteworthy venues such as the Presbyterian cathedrals in New York and Washington, D.C., Cooper Union, and Oxford University he has lectured on religious literature and culture. His work-in-progress is The Tongue is Also a Fire, or, It’s Personal: reflections on rhetoric in education, culture and conversation.

He has been a Chancellor’s Access to Excellence honoree and a Salvatori Fellow with the Heritage Foundation; he is is also a trustee of St. Thomas More College (Dallas) and a member of both the International Spanish Honor Society (honorary) and of The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Dr. Como continues to write for The New Criterion and has published poetry in Pilgrim: A Journal of Catholic Experience. He has recently joined the advisory board of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.

Prof. Como has traveled widely, and as a communication consultant has counseled a variety of people within a broad range of settings. At York, he has chaired his department for fifteen years, been vice-chair and parliamentarian of the Senate, and has chaired the Committee on Academic Standards and the Instruction Committee. He has been honored for his teaching at the College and as a mentor for The Male Initiative and Men’s Center at York.

Since his retirement from full-time teaching in 2012, he has published cultural commentary, short stories and poetry, as well as a sequence of tales for children, The Folk Tales of Brusco and Giovanni. For more information, you may visit jamescomo.com. 

James Como is married to Alexandra Delboy de Como and together are the parents of two and the grandparents of two.