Public Address and its Prospects

The seventh biennial public address conference brought together a remarkable range of scholarly talent for three days of sustained and invigorating discussion. In this it shared with previous iterations of the conference a collective commitment to the study of rhetoric in its public, political, and cultural expressions. As the conference organizer, I could think of no one better suited to its launching than Martin J. Medhurst. The reasons are not far to seek: Professor Medhurst enjoys a well-earned reputation as a prolific and influential scholar; he is a leading proponent of public address studies; and he is a keen observer of disciplinary dynamics, traditions, and challenges. As the editor of this journal and that of several university press series, moreover, Medhurst lends to his insights knowledge that comes from enabling the work of others--no small matter when it comes to asking so much of so many so soon. Needless to say, I was, like everyone else attending the conference, delighted with Medhurst's presentation, and I am grateful for the opportunity to reflect on it here.

The conference keynote address is a convention unto itself, with all the possibilities and limits such genres entail. Professor Medhurst's deft synthesis of critique, praise, and challenge meets and exceeds what we might ordinarily expect from its occasional setting. Refreshingly free from the usual blandishments of the genre, "The Contemporary Study of Public Address: Renewal, Recovery, and Reconfiguration" provides us instead with a series of observations and prescriptions that demand our further consideration. To that end, I comment briefly in the following pages on three issues: the place of rhetoric and public address in the contemporary communication department; the promises and perils of interdisciplinarity; and the vexed question of research specialization.

Before addressing these specific issues, I would like to comment, appropriately I think, on the rhetorical form of the story Medhurst chooses to tell. His is, so to speak, a Whig history of the discipline, alive to the twists and turns of public address studies but forward-looking, confident, and forgiving. It is not for that reason naive: to the contrary, Medhurst has his facts in hand and he knows whereof he speaks--indeed not a few of the books and articles he cites have been nurtured through his own editorial labors (from which, let it be said, I have myself benefited). But like all such Whiggish histories, its very seamlessness, its optimism and coherence, can suggest to the unsuspecting that whatever darker forces out there that may disrupt the narrative have either been banished or don't much matter any more. Without playing Beard to Medhurst's Bancroft, I nevertheless believe that certain material and institutional realities continue to press on the prospects of public address, and to these I now turn.

The state of public address is a very curious state indeed. As Professor Medhurst amply demonstrates, we are currently enjoying the fruits of a renaissance announced by Stephen Lucas more than a decade ago. Never have so many books and articles of such quality graced the publication lists, and these not only from established scholars but from new and emerging ones as well. At the same time, another fact confronts us: the number, size, and quality of graduate programs prepared to train public address scholars is not, to put it mildly, promising. The reasons are no doubt complex, and perhaps we are merely reconfiguring the disciplinary landscape. But perhaps not. It is certainly the case, however, that rhetoric and public address studies no longer remain hegemonic in most of our top programs, and whether or not that is a good thing, it behooves us to acknowledge that things are not as they once were. More typically, rhetoric and public address in major research institutions occupy an enclave in large and diverse communication departments. Consequently, such programs find themselves competing for resources and visibility, pressured to justify and defend themselves, and judged by standards alien to their native...