Alfred G. Mueller II
Position: Tenured Associate Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences
Department: Communication Arts & Sciences
College: University College
Office: 205 Perry Hall
Phone: (717) 749-6021
E-mail: agm6@psu.edu
Professional Information:
My Education:
B.A.,
Communication Studies, Wilkes University
B.A., History, Wilkes University
B.A., Philosophy, Wilkes University
M.A. and Ph. D., Rhetorical Studies, University of Iowa
Research Interests:
I am a rhetorician,
plain and simple. Under Donovan Ochs, I learned about classical rhetoric. Under
Michael McGee, I learned about rhetoric as performance and critical rhetorics.
Under Bruce Gronbeck, I learned about political rhetoric and rhetorical
approaches to mediated discourse. And under both Kathleen Farrell and Hanno
Hardt, I learned about rhetoric as a deeply historical enterprise. My
theoretical interests, therefore, tend to cluster around studies of rhetoric's
intersection with ideology via the five key ideographs of Liberalism--life,
liberty, property, equality, and religion. My most recent theoretical
statements have tended to cluster around the ideograph of religion. Since
rhetoric and ideology seems a bit of a broad topic (McGee told me that I might
prove to be the first true generalist to come out of rhetorical studies
today--and he meant it as a complement), for those administrative trolls out
there, let me break it down into more manageable chunks. My three subfields and
their praxical/theoretical applications follow.
Rhetoric and Public Address: I am interested in the play of ideographs in the public address of Great Britain, the United States, and the NIS.
Rhetorical Theory: My work explores Sophistic and Ciceronian rhetorics and Ernest Bormann's symbolic convergence theory.
Rhetoric and Public Affairs: I am especially interested in geopolitical discourses regarding the Armenian genocide.
I
am in Armenia for the Fall 2005 semester. Under the auspices of a Fulbright
Award, I am teaching communication courses at the Yerevan State Linguistics
University after V. Brusov in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
To learn more about my professional life, click here to read my vita.
Other Sites of Interest: