Dr. Alex Morales joined the University of Memphis as an Assistant Professor of Teaching in 2023. His research aims to connect several areas under the general heading of Enlightenment rhetoric, including 1) history of rhetoric, 2) global and comparative rhetoric, 3) Enlightenment philosophy, and 4) science communication. More specifically, Alex’s research explores how European and Latin American thinkers utilized public skepticism about scientific and political issues to mobilize social change. His dissertation project, for example, examines how David Hume accommodated his mitigated skepticism to upend various forms of dogmatism that circulated during the Scottish Enlightenment. Ultimately, Alex contends that Hume’s rhetorical efficacy lay in his ability to refashion the public’s relationship to public institutions, a feature of his communication that was later retooled by Hispanist scholars and activists to challenge the authority of European monarchies in the nineteenth-century.

 

Above all, Alex's research reconsiders the relationships between European and Latin American orientations toward rhetoric as they emerged in response to global transformations in scientific thinking. For instance, his analysis of Hume’s “Of Eloquence”—which has been accepted for publication at Philosophy & Rhetoric—draws comparisons between Scottish and Ibero-American Enlightenment movements to explain how political theorists overcame the discursive limitations of modern English prose. By examining Hume’s affinity for Cicero and Demosthenes, this essay demonstrates how Hume verbalized the sublime qualities of ancient Greek and Roman eloquence in ways commensurate with the political emphasis on perspicuity emerging in English culture. In addition, his essay “Skepticism as Ethos”—published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech—examines Hume’s efforts to denounce the political influence of the clergy by promoting Renaissance humanism, an orientation toward education and civic participation that contrasted the virtue of ancient eloquence with the vices of scholasticism. Ultimately, these projects examine how public rhetors communicate their ideas in ways that can be brought to bear on modern struggles concerning dogmatism and incredulity. 
Alex is also interested in advising undergraduate students interested in pursuing online degrees. He does so in his role as coordinator of the online BA concentration in communication studies.

Morales, Alexander William. (2021) “An X Too Far: A Review of Randy Allen Harris’s Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science: Case Studies and Issues and Methods.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 10, no. 5 (2021): 20-24.  https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-5Pu.