Explore UAB

Eduardo Neiva

Professor

Research and Teaching Interests: Evolutionary Communication, Communication Theory, Visual Culture.

Office Hours: By appointment

Education:

  • B.A., Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Social Communication
  • Ph.D., Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Fulbright Scholar

Eduardo Neiva’s career as a college professor extends from South America to the United States and then Europe. At the beginning of the last decade, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to join, as Research Associate, the Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies of Indiana University. This was the beginning of his close ties to the American academic world. At almost the same time that Dr. Neiva was awarded the Fulbright scholarship, he received a grant from the USIS (United States Information Service) to teach and do research in the UAB Department of Communication Studies. Since then, he returned to the United States, gained his naturalized American citizenship, became a faculty member of UAB’s Communication Studies Department (where he is now Full Professor), and was the founding Director of the Graduate Program.

Dr. Neiva's published academic output is comprised of 14 books and numerous articles. His academic works are mainly written in either Portuguese or English, but his articles have been translated into Japanese, Spanish, French, and Italian. His book Communication Games was published in English and translated into Portuguese and Mandarin. Dr. Neiva is also a lexicographer, author of the most comprehensive dictionary of communication and media in Portuguese: Dicionário Houaiss de Comunicação e Multimídia (2013).

Dr. Neiva devotes his intellectual efforts to many aspects of communication studies, doing his best to be worthy of its multiplicity. He has taught Communication Studies in Brazil (his native country), the United States, and Portugal with the aide of experience of more than two decades in the academic world and of more than one culture.

  • Research Interests
    • Game Theory
    • Semiotics of Image
    • Biological Aspects of Communication
  • Recent Courses
    • Source Credibility
    • Message Construction
    • Language and Thought
    • Contemporary Philosophies of Communication
    • Communication and Social Movements in America
    • Media and Society
    • All courses taught online
  • Select Publications
    • Mythologies of Vision. New York: Peter Lang, 1990.
    • Communication Games: The Semiotic Foundation of Culture. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007. This work was translated into Portuguese and Chinese.
    • The Language of Life: How Communication Drives Human Evolution (with James Lull). Armhest: Prometheus Books, 2013.
    • Dicionário Houaiss de Comunicação e Multimídia. Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo: Instituto Houaiss, Publifolha, 2013.