Rate My Professor John Murphy

A prominent scholar in Communications, John Murphy's research focuses on the history of American public address and political rhetoric, including the rhetoric of the U.S. presidency and contemporary politics, presidential war rhetoric, campaign speeches, and the evolution of political languages. He has analyzed the rhetoric of figures such as John and Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King Jr., George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Key publications include his book John F. Kennedy and the Liberal Persuasion (Michigan State University Press, 2019); articles such as “Melodrama, William Barr, and the imperial presidency” (Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2022), “The sunshine of human rights: Hubert Humphrey at the 1948 Democratic convention” (Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2020), “Barack Obama and Rhetorical History” (Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2015), and “The Primary Colors of Political Community” (American Literary History, 2012). Murphy has received the 2015 University of Illinois Campus Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, the 2015 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the 2004 National Communication Association Golden Anniversary Monograph Award for “‘Our Mission and Our Moment’: George W. Bush and September 11th.” He has served on editorial boards for Rhetoric & Public Affairs (2000–2019), Quarterly Journal of Speech (2004–2010; 2013–present), and others, as well as numerous university committees including the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Awards Committee at UIUC (2017–2019). His commentary on presidential rhetoric appears in The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and The Conversation USA. Currently, he is writing a book on the civil rights rhetoric of James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King Jr., supported by a 2018–2019 Faculty Fellowship from the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities.