Composition Forum - Summer 2008 - More than 100 Years of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota

Oct 15, 2026

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A historical reflection on the University of Minnesota’s rhetoric tradition, focusing on the dismantling of the 99-year-old Department of Rhetoric and its transfer into a newly created Department of Writing Studies. The text analyzes how institutional realignments reshape rhetorical theory and practice, examines recurring conditions such as rhetoric’s disciplinary independence and its civic responsibilities, and connects these themes to specific people and program locations across the Twin Cities campuses.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Composition Forum 18 (Summer 2008)

More than 100 Years of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota

About the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities Campus)

Composition Forum 18 , Summer 2008 More than 100 Years of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota David Beard University of Minnesota Duluth As part of the development of a Department of Writing Studies in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, the 99 year old Department of Rhetoric in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences was dismantled. The bulk of Rhetoric faculty have been shifted to this new department of Writing Studies . The undergraduate majors & minors (in Scientific and Technical Communication [ STC], for example) and the graduate programs (the MS in STC and the MA and PhD in Rhetoric & STC) were shifted to the new Department of Writing Studies . Of all major research institutions , the University of Minnesota has had perhaps the most convoluted relationship with rhetorical theory and practice. The rhetorical tradition has been at the heart of the Department of Rhetoric and will beat the heart of the Department of Writing Studies—though institutional realignments always mean change. The rhetorical has been essential to the Department of Communication Studies since the postwar period. And, the College of Liberal Arts has housed a number of interdisciplinary initiatives that have included rhetorical study: a Communications program , a freestanding program in Composition; a Center for Advanced Studies in Language, Style, and Literary Theory , and a Center for Writing (offering a graduate minor in Literacy and Rhetorical Studies) . This fragmentation and dispersal of rhetorical studies is part and parcel of the complex positioning of rhetoric at a Midwestern university with roughly 50, 000 students . The particular dismantling of the Department of Rhetoric strikes a chord, at least in me, because this is not the first time that a Department of Rhetoric has been dismantled at the University of Minnesota. An examination of the history of the dissolution of the first Department of Rhetoric and the fate of its programs can serve as an important foil for the critical analysis of the current institutional position of rhetorical studies . The dialogue on the institutional position of rhetoric is functioning at an interdisciplinary level (through the Alliance for Rhetoric Societies and its related initiatives) and at the disciplinary level (as the Consortium for Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition seeks disciplinary status in the National Research Council) . That comparison will let me anecdotally demonstrate what I think are generalizable conditions affecting the development of programs centered on the rhetorical tradition. Primary among those conditions is rhetoric ’s position as an independent field of study. In the nineteenth century , rhetoric was in a predisciplinary state, a state reflected in its course offerings at the University of Minnesota and in the political positions of the faculty at its core. At the end of the twentieth century , University of Minnesota faculty were at the forefront of a new, interdisciplinary formulation for rhetorical work (under the rubric of “technical communication”) . At intermediary positions between, rhetoric was yoked to sister disciplines (English and Communication) which (I think) always threaten to submerge the full rhetorical tradition. Current programs in Rhetoric and Composition must grapple with rhetoric ’s disciplinary status , as well , and there may be lessons to learn from the University of Minnesota’s historical example. The second generalizable condition involves the civic component of rhetoric . Rhetoric ’s tie to the civic tradition must be constantly reinvented and buttressed in the university context. This is just as true of the turn from “elocution” to“public speaking” in the early decades of the twentieth century as it was of the creation of the undergraduate curriculum in the College of Agriculture, and it remains a challenge for rhetorical studies in the new Department of Writing Studies . Yoked as

FAQs

What happened to the University of Minnesota’s Department of Rhetoric?

The 99-year-old Department of Rhetoric was dismantled, and most rhetoric faculty, undergraduate programs, and graduate programs were shifted into the new Department of Writing Studies.

Why does the author describe the dismantling as significant?

Because it echoes earlier dissolutions of a Department of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota, allowing the author to compare past outcomes with the current institutional position of rhetorical studies.

What two generalizable conditions does the text emphasize about rhetoric programs?

The independent disciplinary status of rhetoric and rhetoric’s civic component, which must be continually reinvented within the university context.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by awa