“What kind of speech training is needed in a democracy? The answer is obvious.  The kind needed to promote the welfare of a free society” -- W. Norwood Brigance

With the support of the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, this Thursday to Saturday (Feb. 26 to Feb. 28) the Wabash College Rhetoric Department will host twelve communication scholars to discuss the benefits and content of public speaking courses.

The meeting, the Brigance Colloquy on Public Speaking as a Liberal Art, is a follow-up to our 2005 meeting on Rhetoric and Democratic Citizenship.  The colloquy is convening to consider the role of public speaking in a liberal arts curriculum.  Our interest in the topic is based on several interrelated considerations including the role rhetoric plays in public deliberation in a healthy democracy, the tendency to reduce the teaching of public speaking to a basic skills course without regard for its role in democracy, its relationship to leadership, or its standing as part of the discipline of rhetoric, and the alarming lack of attention that is given to bridging these concerns in most public speaking textbooks.

The colloquy is part of a two-year review of the department’s public speaking course. Objectives include refashioning the course as being more geared toward issues of civic engagement and underscoring the role of public speaking in the liberal arts while retaining the present course’s focus on the critical analysis of public discourse.

The colloquy kicks-off with a public lecture by Dr. Denise Bostdorff of The College of Wooster. Dr. Bostdorff’s lecture, “Citizens Speaking: Rhetorical Education and Civic Engagement,” will be Thursday February 26 at 4:15 in Baxter 101. The talk is free and open to the public.

Subsequently, the twelve visiting scholars will meet with the members of the Wabash College rhetoric department to discuss a range of topics including the goals of teaching public speaking as a liberal art, methods and models for teaching public speaking, content of public speaking texts, and efforts to extend the public speaking classroom.

The scholars participating in the colloquy have a range of experiences in teaching and research. Included are scholars at liberal arts schools and research universities as well as scholars who have authored textbooks, lead centers that address rhetoric and civic engagement, and have engaged in the revisioning of public speaking efforts on their own campus.

The roster of participants is: Jennifer Abbott (Wabash College), Courtney Bailey (Allegheny College), Denise Bostdorff (The College of Wooster), Leila Brammer (Gustavus Adolphus College), Kristine S. Bruss (Kansas University), Martin Carcasson (Colorado State University), Joshua  Compton (Dartmouth College), W. Thomas Duncanson (Millikin University), Bryan Fisher (Francis Marion University), Darlene Hantzis (Indiana State University),  J. Michael Hogan (Pennsylvania State University), William Keith (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Jeff Kurtz (Denison University), Todd McDorman (Wabash College), Jeff Motter (Wabash College), and David Timmerman (Wabash College)

Posted by Todd McDorman at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a tradition rich institution whose narrative is often told through those traditions, Wabash has no shortage of historical touchstones that provide deep insight into the nature of the place. One such reservoir of knowledge is in the plaques that hang in the lobby of the Fine Arts Center to commemorate the Baldwin Oratorical Contest.

The contest itself originated from a gift from the late D.P. Baldwin. Judge Baldwin was a long time trustee of Wabash College.  He was well known on campus and spoke regularly both in chapel and in the classroom.  He was particularly well-known for his lectures on English Literature and Economics.   Judge Baldwin endowed an award to be given to the Wabash students who "compose and pronounce the best orations.”  As the story goes, in probably a Wabash-ian combination of fact and fiction, the Baldwin Oratorical Contest is not only one of the longest continuous running speaking contests in the nation, but “the longest running speaking contest west of the Alleghenies.”

A survey of the winners reveals a glimpse into the history of the college, and those with longer institutional memory than me will no doubt recognize even more of those names (and looking at the top three finishers from every contest yields even more interesting insights).  There are names of trustees, Rhodes scholars, advocates before the Supreme Court, PhDs and MDs, and other distinguished alumni of all sorts. There are names of winners reflective of generations of Wabash men from the same family, and a surprising number of last names that are shared with U.S. Presidents and presidential candidates. In fact one can find two McCains on the list (1889 and1950)—but, of course, no Obama.

The deeper history of the event goes beyond names, of course, to the orations themselves.  Participants have vivid memories of their own day on the Baldwin stage.  Former Dean Mauri Ditzler never forgot one of his Baldwin experiences in which the power went out and he was upstaged by a dog (he’ll have to share the story in full).  You may have your own Baldwin memory.  The manuscripts of winning speeches can be found in the College archives.  A set of speeches from the early 1920s made their way into a published form while the top three orations from each year are sent to the archives as another droplet in that reservoir of Wabash history and tradition.

Tonight another name will be added to the plaque, another Wabash student will be marked as the winner of the 135^th rendition of the contest. This year, contestants were asked to compose an oration in response to the theme “Dear Mr. President.”

To that end the contestants were instructed to compose an oration addressed to President Obama.   They were asked, if given the opportunity, what they would say to him about the country or the world, about the economy or the environment, about our opportunities and our obligations, or about topics altogether different. 

The five finalists will present their responses tonight (Monday February 16) at 8:00 p.m. in the Korb classroom of the Fine Arts Center.  The contest will be judged by Political Science Professor Melissa Butler, Assistant Director of Admissions Mike Owens ’02, and Head Football Coach Erik Raeburn.

The finalists and their titles:

Victor Nava '10, "The Dream Belongs to All of Us"

Michael Nossett '11,  “A Pensive Power”

Donovan Bisbee '12, "Good Night and Good Luck Mr. President”

Sam Prellwitz '10, "Our Feet Are Filthy"

Steve Maynard '11, "An Ode to Oratory"

Posted by Todd McDorman at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the occasion of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, Lincoln has been the focus of a wealth of encomiums.  Wabash is certainly doing its part in celebrating Lincoln (and his Indiana connections), with a series of Lincoln events during the course of the year.  In that context, it seems appropriate to comment on Lincoln’s rhetorical legacy and the wealth of rhetorical scholarship that has been directed at Lincoln.

To be sure, Lincoln is one of the most quoted of American presidents, and his speeches have been rightfully immortalized in numerous anthologies.  In the Quarterly Journal of Speech alone (arguably the flagship journal in rhetorical studies) there are 260 different essays and entries devoted to Lincoln in one way or another! Lincoln has been equally studied in some of the most recognized books in rhetorical studies. He received notable attention in A History and Criticism of American Public Address, the seminal two volume set edited by Wabash’s W. Norwood Brigance.  David Zarefsky, a former Brigance Forum Lecturer, wrote the award winning Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery.  And Ronald C. White, who is technically a historian by training and presented a detailed analysis of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural while at Wabash this past fall, has written extensively on Lincoln’s speeches. Two of White’s previous books include Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural and The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln through His Words.  Professor White’s newest book, the just released A. Lincoln: A Biography is on the best seller lists and has just been praised in William Safire’s recent review of Lincoln Books as the best one-volume Lincoln study of this generation.

In our Visual Rhetorics course this semester, students recently studied a different side of Lincoln—not his words, but the meaning of his image.  In reading Cara Finnegan’s “Recognizing Lincoln: Image Vernaculars in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture,” thirteen Wabash students learned about the discovery of the earliest known Lincoln portrait and the rich public discussion it promoted about the meaning of Lincoln, how he was remembered and what he was to become, and the role of the image in debates about American Identity.  The image, which dates to the late 1840s but was not published until the 1890s, is not one that we normally picture when recalling Lincoln, and that is part of what makes it so fascinating.

 There is so much to study in Abraham Lincoln—what he did, what he said, and the ways in which we continue to remember and memorialize him.  And I am sure we will hear yet new information and learn to appreciate Lincoln in new ways with Thursday’s Chapel talk by Roger Billings ’59.

Posted by Todd McDorman at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)