John Angus Campbell on Science and Rhetoric

The Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology (ARST) celebrated 20 years in 2012. The ARST Oral History Project was conceived to document the institutional history of the organization and the larger intellectual history of the rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine. This interview, with Dr. John Angus Campbell, Professor Emeritus at the University of Memphis, features:

• how to fall into rhetoric of science projects
• why you should always be prepared when you go into your dissertation advisor’s office
• the crucial nature of camaraderie in early ARST meetings
• the devil-may-care attitude is a good one for intellectual freedom
• the radical nature of the very idea of rhetoric of science
• a civic take on the rhetoric of science why style and argument are both substantive in science
• the delight of witnessing Darwin’s inventional play
• “how serious serious play is, and how playful one needs to be in order to be serious”
• the internet and the possibilities of redefinition
• citizen science and intelligent inquiry via the internet
• “you can form your own path”