Will Kurlinkus

Dr. Will Kurlinkus is a business communication faculty member in the Wisconsin School of Business and affiliate faculty with the Holtz Center for Science & Technology Studies. He is a communication scholar whose research examines how nostalgia shapes persuasion and decision-making across politics, marketing, technological design, and professional communication. His work focuses on how appeals to ideal pasts influence trust, adoption, and resistance—particularly in moments of technological or social change.

His monograph, for example, Nostalgic Design: Rhetoric, Memory, and Democratizing Technology has chapters on nostalgia’s role in client communication; UX design from Disney parks to Ikea furniture; vaccine legislation; and participatory research methods. Across these contexts, Dr. Kurlinkus's research shows how nostalgia can function not only as a persuasive strategy, but also as a resource for challenging the status quo and supporting more equitable forms of innovation.

Kurlinkus joined the business communication faculty in fall 2024 after a decade as an English Professor and the Director of Technical Writing and Communication at the University of Oklahoma. Before that he received his PhD in rhetoric, composition, and literacy with a focus on digital media studies from the Ohio State University. He currently acts as a communication and grant writing consultant as well as a manuscript reviewer for several journals and presses including the University of Pittsburgh Press series on Composition, Literacy, and Culture and the WPA Clearing House Practices & Possibilities Series. Close