News from ASHR

Jordan Loveridge: Thanks for agreeing to do this interview, Martin. I’m familiar with your work on Augustine and also your recent work on textual interpretation, which led me to wonder how you formed connections between those topics. Can you tell me about how you became interested in the history of rhetoric?

Martin Camper: My interest in the history of rhetoric is partly motivated by my interest in religious rhetoric, specifically, Christian rhetoric. In the West, the history of the rhetorical tradition intersects quite frequently with the history of Christianity, and I find those intersections fascinating. My first published article, which appeared in Advances in the History of Rhetoric in 2013 and was a version of a paper I wrote my first semester of graduate school, looks at Augustine’s discussion of the stylistic qualities of clarity and obscurity in De doctrina Christiana. Responding to previous scholarship that often claims that Augustine is largely parroting Cicero, I show how Augustine innovates ancient style theory in the context of the interpretation and preaching of the Bible. That was the beginning of my journey studying the history of rhetoric and its intersections with Christianity.

Read more

In the first of a series of interviews profiling ASHR members, I speak with Dr. Kathleen Lamp about her research, her experiences with the organization, the relationship between rhetoric and architecture, and why the Roman Emperor Augustus should be considered an important figure in the history of rhetoric. Dr. Lamp, Associate Professor of Rhetoric at Arizona State University, is the immediate past president of ASHR. She is also the author of A City of Marble: The Rhetoric of Augustan Rome.

Jordan Loveridge: First off, thanks so much for agreeing to do this interview. To start, could you tell me about how you became interested in the history of rhetoric? What initially drew you to the field, and how would you describe your main research areas?

Read more