Education and Professional Experience

Education

1956-60 B.S. in English Literature
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester, Massachussetts

1963-67 completed all requirements except practice teaching for the M.S. in Basic Classroom Teaching (English)
State University of New York
Albany, New York

1967-73 Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric
diss: "A Rhetoric of the Absurd: The Use of Language in the Plays of Samuel Beckett"
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York

1960-63 Ensign - Lieutenant (junior grade), United States Navy, USS Forrestal CVA-59

1963-67 English teacher, grades 8, 9, 11, 12
Hoosic Valley Central School
Schaghticoke, New York

1967-present Graduate Assistant (1967), Instructor (1969), Assistant Professor (1973), Associate Professor (1978),
Professor (1988) of Rhetoric and Communication
Department of Language, Literature, and Communication
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York

Director of Graduate Studies (responsible for M.S. programs in Technical Communication and Communication and Rhetoric, Ph.D. program in Communication and Rhetoric), 1980-85 and 1994-95.

Chair, Department of Language, Literature, and Communication (22 full-time faculty; BS, MS, and Ph.D. programs), 1985-88; Resumed the Chair (Acting), 1998-2000.

Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Science (responsible for Core Program in H&SS required of all Rensselaer undergraduate students; and for majors and minors programs in Departments of Arts, Economics, Language-Literature-Communication, Philosophy, Psychology, and Science and Technology Studies), 1987-93.

Undergraduate

Graduate

Publications

Book:

Oratorical Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Essays on the Transformation of Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. (Co-author/editor Gregory Clark.)

Journal articles and book chapters:

"Text and Experience in a Historical Pageant: Toward a Rhetoric of Spectacle." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31 (Winter 2001), 5-17.

"It's a Great Place to Visit, but I Wouldn't Want to Live There: Virtual American Landscapes of the Nineteenth Century." In C. Jan Swearingen (ed.), Rhetoric, the Polis, and the Global Village: Selected Papers from the 1998 Thirtieth Anniversary Rhetoric Society of America Conference. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1999. (Co-author Gregory Clark.)

"Thomas Cole’s Idea of ‘Nature’ and the Conquest Theme in American Culture." In Carl Herndl and Stuart Brown (eds.), Green Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. (Co-authors Gregory Clark and Allison Woodford.)

"Hugh Blair’s Use of Quintilian and the Transformation of Rhetoric in the 18th Century." In Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff (eds.), Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy, and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1995.

"Reading Darwin, Reading Nature; Or, On the Ethos of Historical Science." In Jack Selzer (ed.), Understanding Scientific Prose. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. (Co-author Carolyn Miller.)

"Further Thoughts on the End of Rhetoric." In Theresa Enos and Stuart Brown (eds.), Defining the New Rhetorics. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1993.

"Conversation versus Declamation as Models of Written Discourse." In Theresa Enos (ed.), Learning from the Histories of Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.

"From Rhetoric to Composition: The Teaching of Writing in America to 1900." In James J. Murphy (ed.), A Short History of Writing Instruction from Ancient Greece to Twentieth-Century America. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1990. Revised version, co-authored by Elizabethada A. Wright, in Murphy (ed.), A Short History of Writing Instruction, second edition; Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hermagoras Press, 2001.

"John Witherspoon on Eloquence." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 17 (spring 1987), 177-92.

"Rhetoric and the English Department." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 17 (winter 1987), 3-10.

"What Every Department Chair Should Know about Scholarship in Technical Communication." ADE Bulletin 79 (winter 1984), 43-45.

"The Birth of Molecular Biology: An Essay in the Rhetorical Criticism of Scientific Discourse." Rhetoric Review 3 (Sept. 1984), 70-83. Reprinted in Nancy R. MacKenzie (ed.), Science and Technology Today: Readings for Writers (New York: St. Martins Press, 1995 and in Randy A. Harris (ed.), Landmark Essays in Rhetoric of Science (*: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hermagoras Press, 1997.

"Figures of Speech in the Rhetoric of Science and Technology." In Robert Connors, Lisa Ede, and Andrea Lunsford (eds.), Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. (Co-author Annette Norris Bradford.)

"Rhetoric in the American College Curriculum: The Decline of Public Discourse." Pre-Text 3 (fall 1982), 245-69. Reprinted in Victor Vitanza (ed.), Pre-Text: The First Decade (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1994).

"Ciceronian Rhetoric and the Rise of Science: The Plain Style Reconsidered." In James J. Murphy (ed.), The Rhetorical Tradition and Modern Writing. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1982. (Co-author Merrill D. Whitburn.)

"Aristotle’s Concept of Ethos, or If Not His Somebody Else’s." Rhetoric Review 1 (Sept. 1982), 58-63.

"Public vs. Private: Richard Sennett on Public Life and Authority." Quarterly Journal of Speech 67 (August 1981), 322-30.

"On Making Choices, Sartorial and Rhetorical." College Composition and Communication 29 (1978), 369-71.

"Eloquence in a Technological Society." Central States Speech Journal 29 (winter 1978), 221-27.

"Technical Writing and the Rhetoric of Science." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 8 (1978), 77-88. Reprinted in Technical Communication 25 (fourth quarter 1978), 7-10, 13.

"Doing Public Business in Public." In Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (eds.), Form and Genre: Shaping Rhetorical Action. Washington: Speech Communication Association, n.d. (1978).

"Tradition and Theory in Rhetoric." Quarterly Journal of Speech 62 (Oct. 1976), 234-41.

"On the End of Rhetoric, Classical and Modern." College English 36 (Feb. 1975), 621-31. Reprinted in Theresa Enos and Stuart Brown (eds.), Professing the New Rhetorics: A Sourcebook, Boston: Blair Press, 1994, and in Richard E. Young and Yameng Liu (eds.), Rhetorical Invention in Writing: Landmark Essays, Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1994.

"Language and the Absurd." Philosophy and Rhetoric 6 (spring 1973), 97-108.

"The Anti-Aesthetics of Waiting for Godot." Centennial Review 16 (winter 1972), 69-81.

"Classical Rhetoric for the Engineering Student." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 1 (Jan. 1971), 17-24.

"Wittgensteinian Grammar." The Personalist 51 (spring 1970), 212-21.

"The Concept of Work in Factory and School." The Catholic Educational Review 66 (Dec. 1968), 592-98.

Notes, Reviews and Ephemera:

review of Ronald H. Carpenter, History as Rhetoric: Style, Narrative, and Persuasion, in Rhetorica (Summer 1997).

"The Last Link: Comment on the Civility Debate." Computer Mediated Communication Magazine, July 1, 1995 (http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1995/july/last.html)

"Afterthoughts on Rhetoric and Public Discourse." In Victor Vitanza (ed.), Pre-Text: The First Decade. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1994.

review of Andrea Lunsford and Richard Lloyd Jones (eds.), The English Coalition Conference: Democracy Through Language, in College Composition and Communication (Dec. 1990).

review of C. H. Knoblauch and Lil Brannon, Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing, in College Composition and Communication (Dec., 1986), 503-5.

"The Most Significant Passage in Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture XXXIV." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 17 (summer 1987), 288-90.

"A Letter from Camp." Sage Newsletter, fall 1987, 2.

"In Defense of Good Old Rhetoric." In RPI Review, fall 1985. Reprinted in the Albany, NY Knickerbocker News, Saturday, Dec. 7, 1985, 11A.

"Studies in Cicero’s Opera Rhetorica: De Oratore III.147." Central States Speech Journal 35 (summer 1984), 127-28.

"Recommended Reading." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 12 (1982), 353-7.

"Comment on [Martin Green’s] ‘Writing About Science’." College English 44 (Sept., 1982), 545-6.

review of Aviva Freedman & Ian Pringle (eds.), Reinventing the Rhetorical Tradition, in College Composition and Communication 33 (Feb., 1982), 94-6.

review of Helene D. Hutchinson, Horizons: Readings and Communication Activities for Vocational-Technical Students, in Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 6 (spring 1976).

"APEX: Political Realities in the Classroom." Intersections 1 (spring 1974), 8-14. (Co-author David R. Hill.)

review of W. Paul Jones, Writing Scientific Papers and Reports, in Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 4 (fall 1974).

"Crime and the Automobile." Intersections 1 (fall 1974), 42-4. (Co-author Lew Shaw.)

"Cities and the Arts." At Rensselaer 73 (spring/summer 1973), 15-16.

Recent Presentations:

2001

"Nature, Narrative, and National Identity in the Hudson River School Painters." Presented at the Catskill Mountain Foundation Elderhostel.

"Lessons Learned from a Short History of Writing Instruction." Presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

2000

"How to Make a Place Sacred: the Dedication of the Saratoga Battlefield as a Public Historical Park." Presented at the conference of the Rhetoric Society of America.

"The Rhetoric of Historical Popularization at the Saratoga National Historical Park." Presented at the convention of the National Communication Association.

1999

"Alexander Wyant and the Paradox of Wilderness in American Landscape Painting." Presented to the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, Brigham Young University.

"The Tour Road at the Saratoga Battlefield as Educational Text." Presented to the student American Studies society at Brigham Young University.

1998

"Two Paintings by Alexander H. Wyant." Presented to the English Department faculty and graduate students at Penn. State University.

"It’s a Great Place to Visit But I Wouldn’t Want to Live There: American National Identity and the Virtual Landscape, from Engravings on Wood to the World Wide Web." (Co-author Gregory Clark) Presented at the conference of the Rhetoric Society of America.

1997

"Beauty, Biophilia, and the American Landscape: Toward an Environmentalist Reading of the Hudson River School." Presented to the Department of Humanities, Michigan Technological University.

"Land, Landscape and National Identity in the United States." (Co-author Gregory Clark) Presented at the congress of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric.

"Visual Rhetoric in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring." Presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

"Beauty and Biophilia: a Belletristic Perspective on Environmental Discourse." Presented to the English Department of New Mexice State University.

1996

"Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Discourses on Art and the Tradition of British Belletrism." Presented to the American Society for the History of Rhetoric colloquium at the annual convention of the Speech Communication Association.

"Belletristic Rhetoric for the Postmodern Student." Presented at the conference of the Rhetoric Society of America in Tucson.

1995

"Reading the Hudson River School Rhetorically." Presented to the English Department Colloquium, University of Texas (Austin).

"Representing the New World Landscape: Decorum and Novelty in the Work of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School." (Co-author Gregory Clark) Presented at the congress of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric.

"Representations of the American Landscape in the Work of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School." Presented to the Rensselaer School of Architecture Colloquium.

"The Conquest Theme in Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Painting and Photography." (co-author Gregory Clark) Presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in a pre-convention workshop on environmentalism and the teaching of writing.

1994

"Transformations of Rhetoric in Nineteenth-Century Social Reform and Social Science: the Case of William Graham Sumner and Henry George." Presented at the conference of the Rhetoric Society of America and at the colloquium of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric.

"Strategies of Dissent in Public and Professional Communities." Presented at the meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

1993

"’Wild Thing’: Nature and National Identity in the Work of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School." Presented in the lecture series in conjunction with the exhibit Drawn to Nature at the Albany Institute of History and Art, and to the Brigham Young University English Department.

"The Rhetoric of Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Painting." Presented to the Miami University (Ohio) English Department.

"Thomas Cole’s Vision of Nature and the Conquest Theme in American Culture." Presented at the convention of the Speech Communication Association. (Co-authors Gregory Clark and Allison Woodford.)

"Rhetorical Poetics and the Historiography of Rhetoric." Presented at the meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Work In Progress

An edition of Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, under contract to Southern Illinois University Press. (Co-editor Linda Ferreira-Buckley.)

Ph.D. Dissertations Directed

Sally Gill, "Medium of the Future, Stories of the Past: the Web, Remediation, and Regional Heritage" (2000).

Jerry  Blitefield, "From the Ground Up: Place, Kairos, and Delivery in the Rhetoric of the Underpowered" (2000).

Fil Sapienza, "The Russian Transnational Community on the World Wide Web" (2000).

Elizabeth Shea, "Genetic Rhetoric: Science, Authority, and Genes" (1998).

Elizabethada Wright, "Fern Seeds: [[Grata] Sara[h] Payson Willis Eldredge Farrington Parton], A.K.A. Fanny Fern" (1997).

B. Dennis McCutchen, "A Rhetorico-Semiotic Inquiry into Ancient Greek Sophistic and Philosophic Discourses: Gorgianic and Aristotelian Theories of Language" (1994).

Sarah Wheeler, "Frances E. Willard’s Rhetorical Contribution to Suffrage and Social Reform" (1993).

Randy Harris, "The Life and Death of Generative Semantics" (1990).

Craig Waddell, "The Role of Pathos in the Decision-Making Process: A Study in the Rhetoric of Science Policy" (1989).

Stephen Katz, "Teaching the Uncertain: The Application of Reader-Response Criticism to the Teaching of Writing as a New Sophistic" (1988).

Dale Sullivan, "A Rhetoric of Children’s Literature as Epideictic Discourse" (1988).

Gregory Clark, "Timothy Dwight’s Travels in New England and New York and the Rhetoric of Puritan Public Discourse" (1985).

Michael Thompson, "The Facts of Life: Rhetorical Dimensions of the Pro-Life Movement in America" (1985).

Edith Algren, "A Rhetorical Analysis of the Role of the Movement against Teaching in English in the Public Schools of Puerto Rico within the Puerto Rican Movement toward Political Autonomy 1898-1949" (1984).

Judith Barnes, "Gender Portrayal in Magazine Advertising. A Comparative Analysis of Three Elements of Gender Imagery in Magazine Ads in 1953, 1979, and 1983: Faces, Places and Products" (1984).

Russell Fanelli, "Interactional Methods of Evaluation and their Consequence in Adult Education" (1984)

Karen B. LeFevre, "Infinite Conversation: A Social Perspective on Rhetorical Invention" (1984).

Marshall Kremers, "The Practical Rhetoric of Samuel P. Newman" (1983).

Jean Lutz, "A Study of Professional and Experienced Writers Revising and Editing at the Computer and with Pen and Paper" (1983).

Annette Norris Bradford, "Classical and Modern Views of the Figures of Speech: Ancient Theory and Modern Manifestations" (1982).

David Bradford, "Twentieth Century Pastoral: Epideictic Discourse in the Founding of the Tennessee Valley Authority" (1982).

Bonnie Stalnaker, "A Study of the Influences of Audience and Purpose on the Composing Processes of Professionals" (1981).

Carolyn Miller, "Environmental Impact Statements and Rhetorical Genres: An Application of Rhetorical Theory to Technical Communication" (1980).

Eileen Meagher, "The Public Hearings of the House Judiciary Committee on the Impeachment of Nixon: An Act of National Ritual" (1979).

Elaine Ognibene, "Women to Women: The Rhetoric of Success for Women, 1860-1920" (1979).

Douglas Bradley Smith, "The Image Heuristic in Rhetorical Theory" (1979).

Leo Finkelstein, "The Calendrical Rite of the Ascension to Power: A Generic Inquiry into 20th Century Presidential Inaugural Addresses" (1978).

Professional Honors and Service

William H. Wiley Distinguished Faculty Award (1991) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, "for excellence in teaching and research, and dedication to the total educational process."

Visiting Associate Professor (summer term, 1984) in the Penn. State University English Department.

Rhetoric Society of America: