James J. Murphy: Rhetoric’s Greatest Ambassador

Shortly after the passing of James J. Murphy—or Jerry, as he preferred to be called—I was asked to submit an obituary for the website of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR), and I have drawn a few of my comments here from that obituary. A short history of his involvement with the ASHR will quickly make apparent why this special issue is so fitting a tribute to Jerry. Encouraged by the success of the inaugural meeting of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric at Zurich in 1977—an organization that he helped create—rhetoricians in the United States wished to establish an American affiliate. At one of his legendary "breakfast meetings" that was held in 1977 at the annual conference of the Speech Communication Association (SCA)—now the National Communication Association—in Washington, DC, Jerry led us in establishing our organization, and we began by sponsoring panels at other conferences. Our nascent organization was initially named the International Society for the History of Rhetoric–American Branch, but we eventually wished to have our own identity and renamed the organization the American Society for the History of Rhetoric. Attending the ASHR-sponsored panels at the SCA Conference in San Antonio, Texas, in 1995, I was struck by their high quality but, at the same time, also dismayed because there were few outlets for publishing such stellar papers in the history of rhetoric given the limited number and range of journals at that time. Ever the visionary, in 1996 Jerry encouraged me to create an editorial board and begin our own journal, which was named by Robert Sullivan Advances in the History of Rhetoric. Publishing our first issue in 1997, Advances eventually grew, becoming the Journal for the History of Rhetoric in 2020 (vol. 23, nos. 1–3) with Ned O'Gorman as the editor. In short, guided by Jerry's leadership, we moved from a fledging (but zealous) group of rhetoricians to the vibrant organization and journal that we have today.In addition to those experiences with Jerry and the ASHR, I have also drawn some of the background knowledge of Jerry's numerous accomplishments and life history from Marquis Who's Who—a narrative approved by Jerry—as well as his own biographical record and my collegial association with him. Finally, I refer readers to Enos (2019).1 There were many aspects to Jerry's long and full life; my orientation here is directed toward rhetoric, but it will soon become clear that the multiple web of vectors of Jerry's life contributed to what he did for rhetoric and why I consider him to be the greatest ambassador for rhetoric in our era.I knew Jerry for only half his life, but that association spanned over a half century. We first met when I wrote him from Indiana University and asked if I could meet him at the University of California, Davis, in the spring of 1970. Returning to my home in Oakland, California, that spring, I recall that much of our initial conversation on that day was about rhetoric, and so began our mentor-apprentice relationship. Our ongoing conversations and friendship covered fifty-two years; in fact, we still discussed rhetoric into December 2021, the last month of Jerry's life, and stopped only because God decided to end our conversation. In order to complement his academic achievements with other significant aspects of his amazing life so that the range of his ethos and impact is better realized, I will complement my own direct knowledge of the last half century of Jerry's life with information about the first half from the sources mentioned above, but there is simply too much to tell here. Few knew, for example, that Jerry was a pilot who fought in the European theater of World War II from 1943 to 1945. In all the decades of our conversations, he never mentioned that heroic aspect of his life; our discussions were almost always academic and almost always involved rhetoric.Given the short background that I sketched above, it should be clear why I am honored to offer this tribute to Jerry. Bringing scholars together to examine rhetoric was one of Jerry's great talents, and it is appropriate that this collection brings scholars of rhetoric together to offer their original research as a fitting tribute to, as Quintilian said, "the good man speaking well." Few realize that Jerry's talent of bringing together people who share an interest in language began at an early age. Jerry had graduated from Saint Mary's College Preparatory High School, an institution run by the Christian Brothers then located in San Francisco, where he was active in forensics. He went on to enroll in St. Mary's College in Moraga, but his higher education was interrupted by World War II. After the war, he returned to the Bay Area and St. Mary's College, earning his BA in 1947. Pursuing his passion for forensics, he founded the Northern California Forensics Association. His introduction to rhetoric doubtlessly came through these experiences. At Stanford University, he received an MA in 1950 and a PhD in 1957. During this period, he complemented his early career in journalism at the United Press with teaching. Eventually, however, he bowed to his lifelong passion for teaching and taught at Saint Mary's College, Stanford University, and Princeton University before accepting a position at the University of California, Davis, where he remained for the rest of his career. Few may know that the departments of rhetoric that emerged in the University of California system were principally a result of his efforts.Quintilian was Jerry's primary model, and, like Quintilian, Jerry was also a teacher-scholar. He was an award-winning professor whose numerous achievements earned him the respect of scholars internationally and were what enabled him to bring academics together in order to advance the study of rhetoric. His list of publications in the form of journal articles, book chapters, single-author books, edited volumes, and coedited volumes is voluminous. He was also the founder of the Hermagoras Press (1983–95), which is now a part of Taylor and Francis/Routledge, and served as coeditor of the Landmark Essays Series with Krista Ratcliffe of Arizona State University. Jerry was not only a cofounder of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric but the first editor of its journal, Rhetorica. Because of such accomplishments, there is little wonder that he received international recognition, including being awarded the title fellow by both the Rhetoric Society of America and the Medieval Academy of America and being named a distinguished scholar by the National Communication Association. He was named a chevalier in the Ordre des palmes académiques (France) and received the papal Benemerenti Medal from the Vatican. However, in our numerous conversations and extensive correspondence, he rarely discussed any of this, preferring to talk about his dreams of future projects in rhetoric.Jerry was not only one of the great scholars and educators of rhetoric of our time; he was rhetoric's greatest ambassador. Just as this collection has done, he brought rhetoricians together. He brought them together to write books, to create organizations, and to establish scholarly journals. His legacy is enshrined in the endurance of all these dimensions of rhetoric that he did so much to foster. A tireless leader and team player to the end, he worked with his coeditors Richard A. Katula and Michael Hoppmann to complete the fourth edition of A Synoptic History ofClassical Rhetoric (see Murphy, Katula, and Hoppmann 1983/2014; see also Enos 2015). In a similar indefatigable fashion, he worked with Christopher Thaiss to coedit the fourth edition of A Short History of Writing Instruction (1990/2020). In his last days, and although he had devoted years to the project, Jerry lamented to me that he wished he could have done more to help his coeditors Marc van der Poel and Michael Edwards with the release of their monumental volume The Oxford Handbook of Quintilian (van der Poel, Edwards, and Murphy 2021). Through the efforts of Marc and Michael and the invaluable local assistance at Davis of his colleague Don Abbott, Jerry made every attempt to celebrate the book's release (via Zoom) in December 2021 from his hospice bed. With only days to go until his passing, he made sure that he personally signed my copy of this wonderful book, a treasure that I kept close to me while composing this memorial.Jerry himself was a gift. On Christmas Eve 2021, that gift was taken from us: Jerry passed (as the ancient Romans used to say) into the shades. Of course, many of us knew him as a giant in our field. He was a gentle giant, one who helped scores of students and young professors discover and fall in love with rhetoric. I stand among that legion of indebted rhetoricians. Jerry was ninety-eight years old when he passed. In the synthesis and summation of all his accomplishments, how shall we best remember our gift of Jerry? Each one who knew him will have a favorite memory, but I like to think of him as the greatest ambassador for rhetoric of our time. In the last fifty years, we have seen rhetoric reestablished in higher education in the United States and, in the process, change higher education in America dramatically. In truth, this change did not come about easily and even encountered resistance from some who attempted to trivialize the importance of both teaching and doing research (including historical studies) in rhetoric. For these critics, helping college students attain proficiency in oral and written rhetoric apparently no longer had (in their myopic view) any place in higher education. In response to such resistant attitudes, approximately twenty-five to thirty individuals in the generation preceding my own risked their academic careers and fought for rhetoric to return to its historically rightful place in higher education. We might debate the exact number of and even the specific individuals who courageously challenged conventional higher education and succeeded in bringing about a renaissance of rhetoric not only in the United States but also, indirectly and eventually, in much of the world. However, no one will argue that one person who must be included in that august number is our beloved colleague James J. Murphy. Enjoy and benefit from the fine articles in this collection knowing that they constitute the sort of tribute that Jerry would have most appreciated.