Todd McDorman, Professor of Rhetoric at Wabash College, will present the 34th Annual LaFollette Lecture at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, October 10 in Salter Hall in the Fine Arts Center.
McDorman’s talk, “One for the Books: Rhetoric, Community, and Memory,” reflects his interests in the cultural meaning of baseball and uses a case study from baseball to illustrate the relationship of rhetorical studies to the humanities.
Much of McDorman’s recent work has examined the rhetoric of sport, with a particular emphasis on the redemptive efforts of banished baseball icon Pete Rose to repair his image and gain re-entry into baseball. Four times he has had the opportunity to present elements of this work at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY.
McDorman joined the Wabash faculty in 1998 and his primary research program has focused on the rhetoric of law with particular interest in marginalized groups. This has resulted in work on topics such as the right-to-die and the Dred Scott case. He has been active at Wabash as a past department chair and was lead writer of Wabash's last re-accreditation self-study. He has been coordinator of Wabash's Moot Court program and in July 2013 he was promoted to full professor.
The LaFollette Lecture Series was established by the Wabash College Board of Trustees to honor Charles D. LaFollette, their longtime colleague on the Board. The lecture is given each year by a Wabash faculty member who is charged to address the relation of his or her special discipline to the humanities, broadly conceived.
The lecture is free and open to the public; a reception will follow his talk.