Living Art: The Rhetorical Humanism of Michael Leff

We borrow the title of this essay from a work in progress, begun shortly after we learned of Michael Leff's death in February 2010. Our collaboration is itself a product of Leff's influence. David Henry studied with Mike both as a Master's student at the University of California, Davis, and in the doctoral program at Indiana University. Several years later at a meeting of the Western States Communication Association, Leff introduced Henry to John Campbell, who was writing a review essay for the Quarterly Journal of Speech, for which Leff then served as the book review editor. Each time Campbell described the trajectory of his analysis, or a connection between the scholarship he was reviewing and conventional wisdom in rhetorical studies, Leff directed his attention to additional readings. Campbell searched his pockets for pen and paper, looked at Henry and said, "You can never talk to Mike Leff without taking notes." When Henry called Campbell in February to commiserate about Leff's passing, the idea for what we initially called "the Leff Project" quickly surfaced. We described it early on as "completing the book that Mike should have written." Before we proceeded further, Campbell called Susan Portney, Mike's partner, who responded enthusiastically. She added, however, that Mike had made Tony de Velasco, whom he had hired at the University of Memphis, his literary executor. At Susan's suggestion, John called de Velasco, who assented to participate, and an editorial collaboration began.

In the few short months since, we have received scores of contacts from Leff's students, colleagues, and friends; begun collecting his unpublished papers and syllabi, his students' lecture notes, and letters about Mike's scholarship, teaching, and impact; discussed criteria for determining which works to consider; and established a working outline of broad subject areas and specific essays to include. This paper both reports our progress to date and serves as an open invitation to readers to recommend revisions that they believe might reflect the breadth, depth, and impact of Leff's work.

An "open invitation" is an apt description, for we intend the project to extend beyond publication of the book we first envisioned. The articles, book chapters, and reviews identified in the tentative configuration of the book laid out below consist primarily of Leff's published work. Yet de Velasco's search of Mike's electronic and hard copy files unearthed a wealth of materials—roughly 60 papers to start, and at least 57 more since the search began—that promise to enhance our understanding of the origin and evolution of his thinking on issues that define his scholarly legacy. These include such matters as the centrality of oral discourse in the development of rhetorical theory, the primacy of text in rhetorical criticism, the relationships between theory and practice in the rhetorical traditions, rhetoric as a means to productive civic engagement, and the place of the liberal arts in twenty-first-century education and culture.

We intend to include some of the previously unpublished research in the book. But other pieces are not nearly ready for publication, nor would our development of them likely reflect accurately Leff's thought, analysis, and argument. Still, we are convinced that a good number of those documents at very early stages of development merit scholars' and students' attention. Consequently, we intend to coordinate publication of the book with the creation of a web site where unpublished works will be posted, and where Leff's scholarship might serve to generate a sustained conversation about the topics and issues that defined his career. Visitors to the site would have the opportunity to contemplate such questions as: How would they define the most significant characteristics of Leff's scholarship? What elements of Leff's research merit celebration, revision, or rejection? And, in what ways have their own careers as scholars, teachers, and mentors modeled (or countered) Leff's life and work?

Our own experiences, combined with rereading Mike's published work and examining the work in progress for the first time, generated three...