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Abstract
Professor James J. Murphy is a prominent scholar in the fields of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance rhetoric as well as the history of the pedagogy of language use. The continuity of his work is demonstrated by his seminal scholarship spanning six decades and by his ability to thread rhetorical traditions into current scholarship. Murphy also demonstrates an unwavering commitment to the field as he both a pioneer and continues to be an innovator of rhetorical scholarship. Murphy has been instrumental in maintaining a community of scholars through his collaborative scholarship and his ability to organize conferences and bring together scholars of rhetoric and similar disciplines.
Notes
[1] James J. Murphy, ed. A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Contemporary America, 3rd edition (London, U.K.: Routledge, 2012), p. x. This volume is characteristic of Murphy's edited work in amassing contributions from many renowned scholars: contributors here include Richard Leo Enos, Martin Camargo, and Don Paul Abbott.
[2] His book-length treatments or scholarly editions of Quintilian comprise: James J. Murphy, ed. Quintilian on the Early Education of the Citizen-Orator (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966); James J. Murphy, ed. and trans., Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing: Translations from Books One, Two and Ten of the “Institutio oratoria” (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987; 2nd edition in press at the time of writing); James J. Murphy and Marc van der Poel, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Quintilian (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, forthcoming), to include contributions by 23 authors.
[3] James J. Murphy, ed. and trans., Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing: Translations from Books One, Two, and Ten of the “Institutio oratoria” (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), p. x.
[4] James J. Murphy, ed. and trans., Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing: Translations from Books One, Two, and Ten of the “Institutio oratoria” (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), p. xiii.
[5] James J. Murphy, ed. and trans., Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing: Translations from Books One, Two, and Ten of the “Institutio oratoria” (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), p. xiii.
[6] Kent, Paralogic Rhetoric: A Theory of Communicative Interaction (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1993), p. 174, n. The collection cited is: James J. Murphy, ed. The Rhetorical Tradition and Modern Writing (New York: MLA, 1982).
[7] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 10. Contributors were: Lawrence D. Green, Robert Gaines, Jerzy Axer, George A. Kennedy, Marjorie Curry Woods, Martin Camargo, John Ward, Jean Dietz Moss, William A. Wallace, Barbara Warnick, S. Michael Halloran, Thomas M. Conley, Kees Meerhoff, Don Paul Abbott, Heinrich F. Plett, Richard Schoeck, Nancy Streuver, and Brian Vickers.
[8] James J. Murphy, ed. Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. viii. In this case the three “arts” which are translated and discussed are the anonymous Bolognese treatise, The Principles of Letter-Writing (1135); Geoffrey of Vinsauf, The New Poetics (c. 1210); and Robert of Basevorn, The Form of Preaching (1322). They respectively exemplify the three major categories of what Murphy calls the “truly medieval forms of the art of discourse” (p. xv): ars dictaminis (the letter-writing art), ars grammatica (the art of grammar, itself subdivided) and ars praedicandi (the art of the thematic sermon).
[9] “Preface” to the 2nd edition of James J. Murphy, ed. Medieval Rhetoric: A Select Bibliography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), p. xii.
[10] James J. Murphy, “The Most Liberal Art,” MS. of lecture given at St Michael's Hall, Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (CMRS), Oxford, England, on July 14, 1979, p. 5. CMRS is one of many institutions around the world that have benefited hugely from James J. Murphy's counsel, assistance and support.
[11] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 3.
[12] James J. Murphy, ed. A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Contemporary America, 3rd edition (London, U.K.: Routledge, 2012), pp. 273–78.
[13] “Priming Speakers” at the symposium, invited to discuss the future of the rhetorical tradition, were Sir Brian Vickers, Peter Mack, Jennifer Richards, and Murphy himself. The proceedings are currently a book-length work-in-progress, edited by David Frank and Nicholas J. Crowe. A similar symposium is to be cochaired by Murphy and Crowe in 2014.
[14] James J. Murphy, Medieval Rhetoric: A Select Bibliography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), p. xi.
[15] James J. Murphy, Medieval Rhetoric: A Select Bibliography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), p. xii.
[16] “Preface” to Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. xii.
[17] Murphy is a “man of vision who has helped us all to see that vision through his eyes.” to Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. xii.
[18] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 2.
[19] Amanda Holton, The Sources of Chaucer's Poetics (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2008), p. 69. She cites four of Murphy's books as being especially important: Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Medieval Rhetoric. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978; Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974; Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts, op.cit; and Medieval Rhetoric: A Select Bibliography, op. cit.
[20] Steven Lynn, Rhetoric and Composition: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 211.
[21] James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), op. cit., p. ix.
[22] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 9.
[23] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 9.
[24] “As noted in conference sessions, articles, and anthologies dedicated to Murphy's scholarship and influence, his work, including these two volumes, has been and continues to be central to rhetorical theory and pedagogy.” Robin Hass Birky, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Summer 2003), pp. 99.
[25] “As noted in conference sessions, articles, and anthologies dedicated to Murphy's scholarship and influence, his work, including these two volumes, has been and continues to be central to rhetorical theory and pedagogy.” Robin Hass Birky, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Summer 2003), p.100.
[26] The authors are indebted to James J. Murphy for this information.
[27] See, for example, the biographical notes “About the Authors” in Murphy, Richard A. Katula and Michael Hoppmann, A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric, 4th edition (London, U.K.: Routledge, 2013). The motto is originally from Aquinas, De magistro.
[28] According to Don Paul Abbott, Murphy is “a preeminent scholar and teacher of rhetoric.” See “The Renaissance” in Lynée Lewis Gaillet, with Winifred Bryan Horner, ed. The Present State of Scholarship in the History of Rhetoric (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2010), p. 98.
[29] “Preface” to Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. xi.
[30] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 4.
[31] Peter Mack, A History of Renaissance Rhetoric, 1380–1620 (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 3. Mack also owns that he “could not have contemplated writing the book” without Green and Murphy's Catalogue: (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. vi.
[32] Kees Meerhoff, Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Summer 2008), p. 339.
[33] Brian Vickers, Classical Rhetoric in English Poetry, 2nd edition (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989), p. 176.
[34] “One Thousand Neglected Authors” in James J. Murphy, ed. Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 20–36. This significant statistic has been noticed, for example, by Wayne A. Rebhorn, Renaissance Debates on Rhetoric (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 2; and Jenny C. Mann, Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), p. 16, n.
[35] Winifred B. Horner, “Preface” to Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. xi.
[36] As Murphy has stated: “Mankind's attempts to understand the universe, or to understand mankind for that matter, have so often in the past eight centuries revolved around spoken or written dialogues between men and women gathered together for study.” “The Most Liberal Art,” p. 1.
[37] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 3.
[38] Beth S. Bennett and Michael Leff, “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 3.
[39] John Ward, “The Lectures of Guarino da Verona on the Rhetorica ad Herennium: A Preliminary Discussion” Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 99.
[40] “Introduction: James J. Murphy and the Rhetorical Tradition” in Winifred Bryan Horner and Michael Leff, ed. Rhetoric and Pedagogy: Its History, Philosophy and Practice. Essays in Honor of James J. Murphy (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995; digitally reprinted, Routledge, 2010), p. 12.