John Muckelbauer

Assistant Professor

Office: 411 Humanities Office Building
(803) 777-5751
muckelba@mailbox.sc.edu

Education

Ph.D., Penn State University, 2002

Specialization Areas

• Modern Rhetorical Theory,
• History of Rhetoric,
• and Rhetoric of Science

Recent Courses

See Course Descriptions for detailed information.

Undergrad
ENGL 387               Introduction to Rhetoric
ENGL 388               Introduction to Theory
SCCC  358              Rhetoric and Film

Graduate
ENGL 732               Introduction to Theory
ENGL 790               Introduction to Composition Theory
ENGL 792               Classical Rhetoric
ENGL 794               Modern Rhetorical Theory
ENGL 830               Special Topics in Theory: Deleuze
ENGL 890               Special Topics in Rhetoric: Rhetoric and Alterity

Current Research Project(s)

1.  Invention and the Future: Rhetoric, Postmodernism, and the Problem of Change (Forthcoming from SUNY Press)

This book begins with the claim that some of the most crucial implications of postmodern theory have gone largely unnoticed, and that it may be that only now, amidst the alleged end of theory and overcoming of postmodernism that this other postmodern challenge might begin to be heard.  This other challenge concerns “the problem of change” and calls us to rethink the very movement of transformation that engineers so much contemporary scholarship.  Drawing on the philosophical projects of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida, the book turns to a series of concepts and practices associated with the classical tradition of rhetorical invention.  Through close readings of key rhetorical texts by Aristotle, Plato, the Sophists, and others, the book attempts to both discuss and to demonstrate how rhetorical invention can offer a non-dialectical or “affirmative” sense of change. 

Publications

Journal Articles

“Returns of The Question: What is Rhetoric?”.  Enculturation 5 (2) (February 2005).
           
“To Do Justice To This Moment: Between Exhaustion and Totality”.  Co-authored with
Tim Donovan.  JAC  24:4 851-71 (2004).
           
“Imitation and Invention in Antiquity: An Historical-Theoretical Revision”.  Rhetorica
21:2 (Spring 2003): 61-88.

“Intensifying Philosophy and Rhetoric.”  Philosophy and Rhetoric. 35:3. (Fall 2002): 175-184.

“Sophistic Travel: Inheriting the Simulacrum Through Plato’s ‘The Sophist’.”  Philosophy and
Rhetoric 34:3 (Fall 2001): 225-244.

“Posthuman Rhetorics: ‘It’s the Future, Pikul’.” Co-authored with Debra Hawhee.  JAC
20:4 (Fall 2000): 767-774.

“On Reading Differently: Through Foucault’s Resistance”  College English 63:1 (September 2000): 71-94; reprinted in Exploring Rhetorical Theory: A Reader. Ed. Stephen Brown and Christine Harold.  Lakeshore Communications (Fall 2001).

Editions and Reviews

Invited review essay on Terministic Screens:  Rhetorical Perspectives on Film, ed. by David
Blakesley.  JAC 23:4 (2003) 900-907. 

Review of Stupidity by Avital Ronnell.  South Atlantic Review 68:1 (Winter 2003) 122-125.

Philosophy and Rhetoric Special Issue on “Intensifying Philosophy and Rhetoric”.
Guest Editor.  35:3 (Fall 2002) 175-265.

JAC Special Issue on “Posthuman Rhetorics”, Guest Co-Editor with Debra Hawhee. JAC
20:4 (Fall 2000) 767-887.
           
Review of Plato’s Dream of Sophistry by Richard Marback.  RSQ 29:4, Fall 1999, 98-100.