- 122 Gailor Hall
Stamler Center for Letters
Sewanee: The University of the South
Box 1385
735 University Avenue
Sewanee, TN 37383 - 8649089946
- Sewanee: The University of the South, Humanities, Department Memberadd
- Rhetoric, Rhetorical Criticism, Protest, Protest Movements, Dissent, History of Dissent, and 38 moreCivil Rights Movement, Civil Rights (History), Freedom of Speech, Rhetoric of Social Movements, Anti-Vietnam War Movement, 1961-1975, Feminist Movement, McCarthyism, Southern Conservatism, Conscientious Objection/Draft Resistance, Anti-Poverty Campaigns, Environmental Movement, American Indian Movement, Gay Rights Movement, Argumentation, Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Address, Public Discourse and Rhetoric, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Rhetorical Theory, Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, Ancient Rhetoric, Critical Thinking, Bill of Rights, Legal History, Constitutional Law, Classical rhetoric, Ciceronian Humanism, First Amendment Law (USA), Undergraduate Research, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), US Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights Movement History, Student Protest, Oratory, American Oratory, African American Rhetoric, and Legal Rhetoricedit
- Sean Patrick O’Rourke is the Director of the Center for Speaking & Listening at Sewanee: The University of the South,... moreSean Patrick O’Rourke is the Director of the Center for Speaking & Listening at Sewanee: The University of the South, where he is also Professor of Rhetoric & American Studies. Prior to his time at Sewanee, O'Rourke was Professor of Rhetoric at Furman University, where he served as Chair of the Communication Studies department from 2005 to 2009. He joined the Furman faculty in 2000 after receiving his J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. He has also taught at Vanderbilt and Oregon State Universities, and has held a visiting professorship at Whitman College, a Brown Distinguished Visiting professorship at Sewanee, Cothran, Piper, and Lilly Fellowships at Furman, a Lilly Fellowship at Vanderbilt, and a Summer Fellowship with the NEH.
O’Rourke teaches and writes in the areas of rhetoric and legal rights, the rhetoric of protest and dissent, and freedom of speech. His work has appeared in both academic and non-academic publications and reflects his abiding commitment not only to his scholarship but also to undergraduate liberal education, undergraduate research in the humanities, and civic engagement. O’Rourke’s efforts have been recognized by over a dozen awards for teaching, research, and service. The most recent of these are the Outreach Award from the Southern States Communication Association, the Chiles-Harrill Award for Distinguished Service to the University from Furman, the Howard Hughes Institute’s Distinguished Mentorship Award, and the John I. Sisco Award for Excellence in Teaching, also from the Southern States Communication Association.
In addition to his time as director and department chair, O’Rourke has also served as Director of Graduate Studies and Coordinator of Graduate Teaching Assistants (both at OSU) and on the Boards of Directors of three national organizations (RSA, ASHR, and ACA). He has also served as the President of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric. In his various administrative positions, O’Rourke has been a champion of collaborative decision-making, faculty governance, and engaged learning. O’Rourke has long encouraged a robust and rigorous intellectual climate, interdisciplinary collaborations, public service and civic engagement, and close connections between university campuses and their surrounding communities.edit
Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings: Was Blind but Now I See is a collection focusing on the Charleston shootings written by leading scholars in the field who consider the rhetoric surrounding the shootings. This book... more
Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings: Was Blind but Now I See is a collection focusing on the Charleston shootings written by leading scholars in the field who consider the rhetoric surrounding the shootings. This book offers an appraisal of the discourses – speeches, editorials, social media posts, visual images, prayers, songs, silence, demonstrations, and protests – that constituted, contested, and reconstituted the shootings in American civic life and cultural memory. It answers recent calls for local and regional studies and opens new fields of inquiry in the rhetoric, sociology, and history of mass killings, gun violence, and race relations—and it does so while forging new connections between and among on-going scholarly conversations about rhetoric, race, and religion. Contributors argue that Charleston was different from other mass shootings in America, and that this difference was made manifest through what was spoken and unspoken in its rhetorical aftermath. Scholars of race, religion, rhetoric, communication, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.
Research Interests: Rhetorical Analysis, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Political Rhetoric, White Supremacy, Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, and 11 moreCharleston SC history from Colonial to Present, Mass Shooting, Rhetoric and Public Address, Rhetoric and religion, Mass Shootings, Shooting Spree, Mass Shooting, School Shootings, Black Studies Charleston, Religion and Rhetoric, Rhetoric and Race, The Charleston Massacre of 2015, and Charleston South Carolina
The calls for academics to engage the public have grown, motivated by concerns for civic health and for maintaining public and political support for higher education and academic research. Whatever its value to the public sphere, there is... more
The calls for academics to engage the public have grown, motivated by concerns for civic health and for maintaining public and political support for higher education and academic research. Whatever its value to the public sphere, there is still considerable uncertainty about whether and how public engagement counts–is it valued by colleagues and institutions in promotion and tenure decisions? We sought to provide evidence to assess the value of public engagement with experimental and observational methods set in a survey of faculty from seven liberal arts colleges. We find that public engagement is valued and engaged by these faculty, with variation observed by institution, mode of public engagement, and college division (arts faculty the most supportive and science faculty the least). We recommend institutions communicate clearly how they value public engagement; until that point, academics should tread carefully as they seek public audiences and partnerships.
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Research Interests: Archival Studies, Public Address, Southern Studies (U.S. South), Rhetoric and Public Culture, Archives, and 11 moreSouthern History, Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights (History), Rhetorical History, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Lynching, South Carolina, Archival/Museum Studies, Rhetoric and Public Address, South Carolina History, and Greenville SC
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Research Interests: Rhetoric, Rhetoric and Public Culture, George W Bush adminstration, Barack Obama, Controversy, and 12 moreEpideictic Rhetoric, George W. Bush, George W. Bush Presidency, Rhetoric and Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Public Argument, Barack Obama Administration, University of Notre Dame history, Commencement Speeches, Barack Obama Presidency, Furman University history, and Furman University history
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Research Interests: Scottish Literature, Rhetoric, Composition and Rhetoric, Textual Criticism, Rhetoric and Public Culture, and 9 moreScottish Enlightenment, Argumentation, David Hume, Debate, The Philosophy of Henry Home (Lord Kames), The Philosophy of Francis Hutcheson, Hugh Blair, Ciceronian Humanism, Ciceronian Eloquence, and Belletrism
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Research Interests: Constitutional Law, Rhetorical Invention, Early American Republic, Abolition of Slavery, Rhetorical Criticism, and 11 moreEarly Republic--American History, History of Constitutional Law, Ciceronianism, Ciceronian Humanism, Fugitive Slave Act, Rhetoric and the Law, Ciceronian Eloquence, Ciceronian Rhetoric, Fugitive Slaves, Judicial Rhetoric, and Rhetorical Situation
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Sean Patrick O'Rourke: Introduction: On Saturday, November 20, 1993, five historians of rhetoric presented papers on the question, "What is the most significant passage on rhetoric in the works of Francis Bacon?" The American Society for... more
Sean Patrick O'Rourke: Introduction: On Saturday, November 20, 1993, five historians of rhetoric presented papers on the question, "What is the most significant passage on rhetoric in the works of Francis Bacon?" The American Society for the History of Rhetoric ...
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Research Interests: Dispute Resolution, Strategic Communication, Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, Conflict Management, and 14 moreStrategic communication (Communication), Strategic communications, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Bargaining, Communication Strategies, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), Negotiations, Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution, Bargaining Theory, Legal Negotiation Ethics, Conflict and Conflict Management, Legal Negotiation, Conflict Management and Transformation, and Conflict and Conflict Managmnt
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Research Interests: Rhetoric, Composition and Rhetoric, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Scottish Enlightenment, Intellectual History of Enlightenment, and 8 moreEarly Modern Intellectual History, Rhetorical History, Rhetorical Theory, Rhetorical History and Theory, History of Rhetoric, Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, Rhetoric In England, and Enlightenment Rhetoric
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Research Interests: Rhetoric, Women's Studies, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Protest, and 9 moreCivil Rights Movement, US Civil Rights Movement, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Protest Movements, American public address, Women's Speech, Rhetoric and Public Address, History of Women's Rhetoric, and African American Public Address
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Research Interests: Constitutional Law, Law and Literature, Literature and Law, Law, Language, and Literature, Language and the Law, and 10 moreConstitutional History, Law and Narrative, Law and Language, Law and literature, history of rhetoric, Legal Narrative, Legal narratives, 18th c. Literature and Culture, Law and Literature, Legal History, Rhetoric and the Law, Constitutional Interpretation, and Law & Literature
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Research Interests: Rhetoric, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Law and Literature, Theory of Metaphor and Rhetorics, Literature and Law, and 10 moreHistory of Rhetoric, Law, Language, and Literature, Language and the Law, Judicial Decision-Making, Law and Language, Law and literature, history of rhetoric, Rhetoric and the Law, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Judicial Rhetoric, and Metaphors in Reasoning and Communication
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Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, Oratory, Civil Rights Movement, African American Rhetoric, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), and 6 moreMalcolm X, Rhetoric and Public Address, Civil Rights Movement History, The Ideas of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and His impact on the Civil Rights Movement, and American Oratory
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Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, Conversation, Gun Control, School Shootings, Mass Shooting, and 8 moreSchool rampage shootings, Gun Violence, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Mass Shootings, Shooting Spree, Mass Shooting, School Shootings, Robert Frances Kennedy, Gun Violence and Gun Control, and Robert F. Kennedy
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Research Interests: Legal History, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Movement, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Scottsboro, and 11 moreLegal Rhetoric, Alabama history, Governor George Wallace, 14th Amendment, 6th Amendment Rights, Scottsboro Boys, Clarence Norris, Norris v. Alabama, Powell v. Alabama, Charles Evans Hughes, and Samuel Leibowitz
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Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Protest, Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights (History), and 9 moreUS Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Protest Movements, Rhetoric and Public Address, American Civil Rights, Desegregation, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, African American Lives during the American Civil Rights movement, Greenville SC, and Sit-In Movement
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Research Interests: Public Address, Genocide Studies, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Holocaust Studies, Holocaust, and 9 moreHolocaust and Genocide Studies, American public address, The Holocaust, Rhetoric and Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Elie Wiesel, History of Holocaust Survivors In the Aftermath of World War II, American Oratory, and Perils of Indifference Speech
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Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, Protest, George W Bush adminstration, Epideictic, History of Dissent, and 12 moreDissent, Epideictic Rhetoric, George W. Bush, George W. Bush Presidency, Rhetoric and Public Address, Criminal Offenses of the George W. Bush Administration, Political dissent, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Student Protest, American Oratory, Commencement Speeches, and Furman University history
Research Interests: 1960s (U.S. history), Rhetoric and Public Culture, Protest, Civil disobedience, Anti-War, and 9 moreProtest Movements, Protest and resistance, Anti-Vietnam War Movement, 1961-1975, Cultural and Political Activism of the 1960s and 1970s, Rhetoric and Public Address, Social Movements and Protest, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Catonsville Nine, and Barrigan Brothers
Research Interests: Political Campaigns, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Political Assassinations, Eulogies, Martin Luther King Jr., and 11 moreRhetoric and Public Address, Eulogy, Robert Kennedy, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, U.s. Presidential Campaigns and Elections, Campaign Rhetoric, Political Campaign Rhetoric, American Oratory, Robert Frances Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Political Eulogy
Research Interests: Political Campaigns, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Political Assassinations, Eulogies, Martin Luther King Jr., and 13 moreAssassinations, American public address, Political campaigning, Political Campaign, Rhetoric and Public Address, Eulogy, Robert Kennedy, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, U.s. Presidential Campaigns and Elections, American Oratory, Robert Frances Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Political Eulogy
Research Interests: Black Studies Or African American Studies, Preaching, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Rhetorical Criticism, and 11 moreProtest, Oratory, Civil Rights Movement, African American Studies, Civil Rights (History), US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Martin Luther King Jr., Protest Movements, Rhetoric and Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, and American Oratory
Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, War on Terror, George W Bush adminstration, Presidential rhetoric, Franklin Roosevelt, and 10 moreFDR, Rhetoric and Public Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Politics of Fear, Inaugural Speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Four Freedoms, Discourse Study of Presidential Inauguration address, and FDR First Inaugural Address
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Research Interests: Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights (History), and 13 moreUS Civil Rights Movement, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), American public address, Rhetoric of Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Filibuster, U.S. Senate, American Oratory, Filibustering, Filibusters, Strom Thurmond, and Congressional Rhetoric
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Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Protest, Oratory, Vietnam War, and 15 moreCivil Rights Movement, Civil Rights (History), US Civil Rights Movement, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Martin Luther King Jr., Protest Movements, American public address, Anti-Vietnam War Movement, 1961-1975, Rhetoric and Public Address, Social Movements and Protest, Martin Luther King, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Literature of Martin Luther King, American Oratory, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speeches
Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, Rhetorical Criticism, Oratory, 9/11 Literature, George W Bush adminstration, and 10 morePost-9/11 discourse and cultural production, Presidential rhetoric, Epideictic Rhetoric, George W. Bush, George W. Bush Presidency, Rhetoric and Public Address, Political Oratory, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 9/11 Studies, and American Oratory
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Research Interests: Southern Studies (U.S. South), Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Resistance (Social), Rhetorical Criticism, and 18 moreProtest, U.S. law and public policy; civil rights and civil liberties, Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights (History), US Civil Rights Movement, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Cultural power and resistance, Manifestos, Protest Movements, Resistance, History of Dissent, Dissent, Rhetoric and Public Address, Political dissent, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Civil Rights In the USA, Strom Thurmond, and Southern Manifesto
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Research Interests: Black Studies Or African American Studies, Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Oratory, Civil Rights Movement, and 11 moreAfrican American Studies, Civil Rights (History), African American Rhetoric, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Martin Luther King Jr., Rhetoric and Public Address, American Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, American Oratory, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speeches
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Research Interests: Rhetoric and Public Culture, Civil Rights, Oratory, Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights (History), and 13 moreAfrican American Rhetoric, US Civil Rights Movement (1968-1973), Lynching, Parrhesia, Rhetoric and Public Address, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Emmett Till's murder and the effect of Mamie-Till Mobley and the media on influencing civil rights, Emmett Till, The Murder of Emmett Till: Myth, American Oratory, Murder Trials, Lynchings, and Mose Wright
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This speech, delivered at the invitation of Furman University's Mere Christianity Forum and rooted in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, argues that Christians and others should pursue a "republic of heaven."
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Speech given at the dedication of the Learning Commons in the Jessie du Pont Library, Sewanee: The University of the South. Argues that wisdom and eloquence are at the heart of liberal education in the 21st century.
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This essay celebrates Young Scholars in Writing’s first ten years by considering the journal’s Comment and Response section. It locates the activity of commenting on and responding to peer scholarship at the heart of traditional education... more
This essay celebrates Young Scholars in Writing’s first ten years by considering the journal’s Comment and Response section. It locates the activity of commenting on and responding to peer scholarship at the heart of traditional education in rhetoric, argues for an approach that emphasizes controversia, the more or less Ciceronian notion of considering both or all sides of a question, details the comment and response assignment at Furman University, and considers several benefits of commenting on and responding to peer scholarship.
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The calls for academics to engage the public have grown, motivated by concerns for civic health and for maintaining public and political support for higher education and academic research. Whatever its value to the public sphere, there is... more
The calls for academics to engage the public have grown, motivated by concerns for civic health and for maintaining public and political support for higher education and academic research. Whatever its value to the public sphere, there is still considerable uncertainty about whether and how public engagement counts–is it valued by colleagues and institutions in promotion and tenure decisions? We sought to provide evidence to assess the value of public engagement with experimental and observational methods set in a survey of faculty from seven liberal arts colleges. We find that public engagement is valued and engaged by these faculty, with variation observed by institution, mode of public engagement, and college division (arts faculty the most supportive and science faculty the least). We recommend institutions communicate clearly how they value public engagement; until that point, academics should tread carefully as they seek public audiences and partnerships.
Research Interests: Sociology, Higher Education, Political Science, Public Relations, Politics, and 11 moreCivic Engagement, Institution, Public Engagement, Public Intellectuals, Liberal Arts Education, The Arts, Liberal education, Outreach and Engagement in Higher and Postsecondary Education, Public Value, Public Intellectual Engagement, and Tenure and Promotion
This essay considers questions about civility raised in the discourse responding to the January 2011 shootings in Tucson, Arizona. Focusing on two sites of discord—the debate in the media and President Obama’s address at the memorial... more
This essay considers questions about civility raised in the discourse responding to the January 2011 shootings in Tucson, Arizona. Focusing on two sites of discord—the debate in the media and President Obama’s address at the memorial service for the victims—our analysis identifies two conceptions of civility and their corresponding assumptions about democracy and community, provides a critique of both conceptions, and offers a conceptual framework for rhetorical critics studying civility.
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Theproblemof textual circulation at the heart of this forumhas a rich and complicated genealogy. Issues of textual provenance, authenticity, transcription, translation, and accuracy, so central to the inquiries of the Renaissance... more
Theproblemof textual circulation at the heart of this forumhas a rich and complicated genealogy. Issues of textual provenance, authenticity, transcription, translation, and accuracy, so central to the inquiries of the Renaissance humanists, have quite recently given way to questions raised by postmodern culture’s media-saturated environments: textual fragmentation, distribution, consumption, and redistribution by and in multicultural and frequently transnational publics and counterpublics, in nonsynchronous, nonlinear, nonpunctual interchanges. Few studies, however, have considered the circulation of photographic texts or the question examined in this essay: howmight the strategic circulation of some photographic texts and the noncirculation of others serve to buttress a status quo buckling under the assaulting forces of change? How might circulation and noncirculation serve the rhetoric of those seeking to control or stifle that change? Working from the assumption that the civil rights movement was a fundamentally rhetorical activity, this short essay considers the rhetoric of visual argument in the photographs published (and not published) by the