Talking Heads at the Dinner Party

By Scott McLemee. As discussed here last week, Anna M. Young’s book Prophets, Gurus, and Pundits: Rhetorical Styles and Public Engagement (Southern Illinois University Press) is a recent addition to the literature on the opportunities and the burdens summed up in that slightly redundant expression “public intellectual.” The author is an associate professor of communication at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, and her approach to the topic comes from the oldest body of communications theory and practice: rhetoric. Read more...