John M Murphy

Rhetoric of the US presidency and contemporary politics; presidential war rhetoric and campaign speeches.

John Murphy studies the history of American Public Address and political rhetoric. He is the author of John F. Kennedy and the Liberal Persuasion, a critique of President Kennedy's greatest speeches and the liberal tradition. He studies the evolution of political languages. He's written on John and Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King. Jr., George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. His scholarly work has appeared in journals such as Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Quarterly Journal of Speech, and American Literary History. His commentary on the presidency and presidential rhetoric regularly appears  in popular media outlets such as The Conversation USA, Washington Post, New York Times, and USA Today. He is currently working on a book project concerning the civil rights rhetoric of James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ph.D., University of Kansas

2015 Campus Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award
2015 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award
2004 National Communication Assocation Golden Monograph Award

CMN 321: Strategies of Persuasion
CMN 396: Rhetoric and the Presidency
CMN 423: Rhetorical Criticism
CMN 538: Graduate Seminar in Rhetoric

3001 Lincoln Hall, MC-456
702 S Wright Street
Urbana IL 61801

333-1593