Starting as a major in "Language and Mind" at MIT, I completed my undergraduate studies in Math at the University of Chicago, and then practiced rhetoric as a lawyer before going on to get a Ph.D. with an emphasis in classical rhetorical theory and contemporary public address. Now I've found myself in the English department here at the nation's first land grant university. And all the while I've been learning about one and the same big thing. Eventually I'll figure out what it is!

Office/Office Hours

• office: 223 Ross
• office hours: Fall '07:  Monday 1:10-3:00, Tuesday 10:00-10:50 and freely by appointment
• email: goodwin@iastate.edu (best)
• office phone: (515) 294-3477
• home page: http://goodwin.public.iastate.edu (see for complete information and all courses)

Interests

• Rhetorical theory, with special emphasis on the theory of argument in civic settings. How do people who disagree about almost everything nevertheless manage to deliberate together? What do they have to say to each other? I want to answer these questions without making "optimistic" assumptions that disagreement will somehow disappear.
• The scholarship of teaching and learning argument. What does learning to argue mean for students? Are debates a good learning activity for classes throughout the University?
• Debates over the "bioeconomy" and "sustainability," e.g., ethanol. What sorts of rhetorical appeals will help Iowans deliberate about these new opportunities deeply (considering the long term), broadly (aware of global impacts), and densely (taking into account systematic complexity)?
• Oratory. Someone stands up, earns the attention of her fellow citizens, and the world changes. This still works, and we need to watch it, cherish it, understand it and foster it better.

Selected Publications

• "Argument has no function," Informal Logic 27 (2007).
• "Theoretical pieties, Johnstone's impieties, and ordinary views of argumentation," Philosophy & Rhetoric 40 (2007): 36-50.
• "Designing premises." In Argumentation in Practice, edited by F.H. van Eemeren and P.Houtlosser, 99-114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005.
• "Students' perspectives on debate exercises in content area classes," Communication Education 52 (2003) 157-163.
• "Designing issues." In Dialectic and Rhetoric: The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis, edited by F.H. van Eemeren et al., 81-96. Amsterdam: Kluwer, 2002.
• "Cicero's authority." Philosophy & Rhetoric 34 (2001): 38-60.
• For the complete list, here's my cv in pdf format.

Degrees

• Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, program in Rhetoric, 1996.
• J.D., University of Chicago Law School, 1984.

Other facts

• I play T'ai Chi, am devoted to the Ames Farmers' Market, take care of the largest collection of central asian felt rugs in central Iowa, don't clean often enough, and am a master of the dumpling.
• "I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny over the minds of man": since T. Jefferson already took this one, my epitaph will have to be: "Native (autochthon) of the goodly land of rhetoric, full citizen (politeis) of the city of mind, permanent resident alien (metoike) in the contemporary academy."