Samuel McCormick is on a quest to understand the ways people talk to each other in everyday society. The assistant professor of Communication Studies presents “Doing Justice to the Social: A Conceptual History of Everyday Talk,” a free lecture on his research at University of San Francisco’s Junior Scholar Speaker Series at 5pm April 29.
“In addition to considering the communicative practices of ordinary citizen-subjects, we must account for the elite theoretical discourse of those who have taken it upon themselves to define, describe and often deride these communicative practices,” McCormick says.
The lecture takes place in McLaren Hall, room 251, on the USF campus. It is sponsored by the dean’s office at USF’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Samuel McCormick
McCormick, who joined SF State in 2012, studies rhetoric and public advocacy, especially as these topics intersect with broader issues in communication and social theory, intellectual and cultural history, and contemporary American civic life. He is also interested in a variety of critical, interpretive and historical methods like rhetorical criticism, discourse analysis, conceptual history, microhistory, Geistesgeschichte and the cultural history of ideas.
McCormick’s first book, Letters to Power: Public Advocacy Without Public Intellectuals (Pennsylvania State University Press) won the 2012 James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address from the National Communication Association and the 2012 Everett Lee Hunt Award from the Eastern Communication Association.