Michael Calvin McGee
Michael Calvin McGee (October 21, 1943, in Rockwood, Tennessee – October 27, 2002, in Iowa City, Iowa) was an American rhetorical theorist, writer, and social critic.
Personal life[edit]
The son of John Vester and Dorothy Eloise (Hicks) McGee, he spent his early years in Knoxville, Tennessee. He graduated with a B.A. in Speech from Butler University, where he was a champion debater. In 1967 he graduated with an M.A. in Rhetoric from Cornell University. In 1973 he married Lyda Eugenia Twitty. In 1974 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, writing his dissertation "Edmund Burke's Beautiful Lie: An Exploration of the Relationship between Rhetoric and Social Theory" under Donald C. Bryant. He received some criticism for his teaching because of his staunch liberalism, which affected his teaching style, but despite this, he was still a very sought-after professor, teaching at major universities in the United States such as the University of Alabama, the University of Memphis, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is known for his materialistic views of rhetoric, summarized from the lesser-known McGee essay "The Practical Identity of Thought and Its Expression".[1] In 1979 he moved to Iowa City, where he settled in at the University of Iowa.
Major contributions[edit]
McGee had many major contributions in the realm of rhetoric and cultural studies. He published three major works: Rhetoric in Postmodern America, The Ideograph: A Link between Rhetoric and Ideology, and Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture.[2] The most important of these is considered to be his second major work, The Ideograph. McGee was the first rhetorical theorist to propose this concept on an ideograph, which he described as, "an ordinary-language term found in political discourse. It is a high-order abstraction representing a commitment to a particular but equivocal and ill-defined normative goal."[3] Also he was a critic of what he saw going on in the world around him. The most well-known of these critiques was his critique of Spike Lee and his association with Nike ads. McGee said that these ads were too racially stereotypical and made a case for Lee to cease these ads but Lee continued with them nonetheless.[4]
Later life[edit]
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McGee was one of the founders of the American Communication Association and a member of the National Communication Association. In his last years, he was very active in virtual rhetorical communities and online debates. McGee founded a website, (f)ragments, for rhetorical research and created a virtual learning community.
References[edit]
- ^ "ACJ Essay: Embracing the Superficial: Michael Calvin McGee, Rhetoric, and the Postmodern Condition".
- ^ Rhetoric in Postmodern America: Conversations with Michael Calvin McGee. Edited by Carol Corbin. New York: The Guilford Press, 1998
- ^ McGee, M.C. (1980). The "ideograph": A link between rhetoric and ideology. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 66, 1-16.
- ^ Charland, Maurice (1998). "Rhetoric in Postmodern America: Conversations with Michael Calvin Mc Gee". Canadian Journal of Communication. 23 (4). doi:10.22230/cjc.1998v23n4a1067.
External links[edit]
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- 1943 births
- 2002 deaths
- 20th-century American educators
- Cornell University alumni
- Academics from Knoxville, Tennessee
- Writers from Iowa City, Iowa
- University of Alabama faculty
- University of Iowa alumni
- University of Iowa faculty
- University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
- Butler University alumni
- People from Rockwood, Tennessee