As I mention elsewhere on this site, I’ve been slowly trying to get electronic copies of all my articles since not all of my journals were able to make the trip from Minnesota to Georgia. And let’s just say that some of the predictions came true a little earlier than intended, and some of the ideas… didn’t.
Donn Parson, a former director of debate at the University of Kansas wrote the following:
Perhaps the 2046 NDT can be conducted over the computer.
Parson, “The National Debate Tournament at Fifty: W(h)ither the NDT?” (Argumentation & Advocacy 33.1 (1996): 33-35; quotation appears on page 35).
Umm, I think that happened a few years before 2046.
To be fair, I happen to be a part of a discipline (rhetorical studies) where there have been important changes, and new theoretical perspectives, but a surprising number of articles still hold up. It’s possible to assign an article from 1968 knowing it’s still a part of the canon that we teach students in introductory rhetorical criticism courses.[1]Some of you probably already guessed that I’m referring to Lloyd Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation.” Then again, we still haven’t mined everything possible from Kenneth … Continue reading[2]We could even talk about certain dead Greeks and Romans too, if we’re going to go down that road…
This whole project has made me wonder: how many articles are worthwhile, but they’ve been forgotten by the community of scholars? And how many articles are worth replicating to see how things have changed because of culture, technology, and so forth? The latter is not trivial; it could provide students in introductory research courses valuable guidelines to follow, and an easier way of accessing how to do research. I know I did a replication/extension study for my bachelor’s honors thesis. The scholars that came before us weren’t dumb or lazy; I don’t think many of us would want to type a 450-page dissertation using carbon paper and manual typewriters.
I did say that part of the purpose of this website was to put some longer “think” pieces on here. As I prepare for teaching Communication Theory in 2022-2023 (this will be something like the 37th or 38th different class that I’ve taught), I’m thinking more about what students need to know from across the discipline — and what those articles are that we’ve forgotten about that can help us to teach that history in a different way.