Antonio de Velasco
Associate Professor

Degrees Held

B.A., 1996, Guilford College
Ph.D., 2005, Emory University

Academic Summary

A teacher of rhetoric, Tony de Velasco works within a scholarly tradition more than 2,000 years in the making. Bringing this established tradition into dialogue with classical and contemporary social theory, de Velasco designs and teaches courses across the department’s rhetoric curriculum. He is a recipient of the University of Memphis Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award, a campus-wide distinction that recognizes excellence in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Professor de Velasco has published on a range of topics, including the rhetoric of current political controversies, argumentation, the history of rhetoric, and pedagogy. His first book, Centrist Rhetoric: The Production of Political Transcendence in the Clinton Presidency, was named a “highly recommended” title of 2010 by Choice magazine. In 2011, de Velasco, with Melody Lehn, published Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy, an edited volume featuring top papers delivered at the Rhetoric Society of America’s 2010 conference. Currently, de Velasco is co-editing an anthology of essays by the late rhetorician Michael C. Leff. He is also director of On Civic Learning: Rhetoric, Public Address, Political Division, the Thirteenth Biennial Public Address Conference to be held in at the University of Memphis in September 2012.

Courses Taught

Oral Communication
Rhetoric & Civic Controversy
Senior Seminar in Communication
Political Communication
American Eloquence
Rhetorical Pedagogy
Presidential Rhetoric
Contemporary Rhetorical Theory
Rhetoric and Cultural Studies

Major Publications

Rhetoric: Concord and Controversy (with Melody Lehn) (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2011.

“A Crimson Tide: Republicans' Worldview Proves Successful in South, Beyond.” The Commercial Appeal, Viewpoint, V1, October 31, 2010.

Centrist Rhetoric: The Production of Political Transcendence in the Clinton Presidency. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010)

(with Michael C. Leff) "Rhetoric" in Kristen Malmkjær, ed. The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia. (London: Routledge, 2009), 456-61.

“Transgressive Eloquence: bell hooks, Cicero and the Aims of Rhetorical Pedagogy.” Sizing Up Rhetoric. David Zarefsky and Elizabeth Benacka, eds. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2007), 393-7.

“Rethinking Perelman’s Universal Audience: Political Dimensions of a Controversial Concept.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 35.2 (Spring 2005), 47-64.