A Brief History of the Department of Rhetoric
Some Dates
1868: Rhetoric and Public Speaking Part of English instruction
1915: Department of Public Speaking Founded by Charles Mills Gayley and Martin C. Flaherty (Financially supported by former San Francisco Mayor James Phelan)
1941: Department of Dramatic Art established
1946-47: Department renamed Speech
1966-67 – 68-69: Speech department begins offering some graduate courses
1969-70: Rhetoric Department established
1996: Film PhD track within Rhetoric
2011: Film and Media Studies becomes full department
Origins
The study of Rhetoric, both in theory and practice, formed part of the curriculum of UC Berkeley from its very opening as an institution of higher learning in September 1869. The Register of the University (precursor to the Catalog of Courses), for 1870-71, which constitutes the first surviving description of the academic structure of the university, notes that in Fall 1870 the university has “just entered on its second year,” and that all matriculated students would be following the “fourth class” (meaning first or freshman year) curriculum in 1870-71 with subsequent years added in each succeeding year. The university was composed of three colleges: the College of Arts: Agriculture, Mechanic Arts, Mines, and Civil Engineering, the College of Letters, and Professional and Other Colleges, (at that time only a College of Medicine). In reference to ancient rhetoric, it is worth noting here that the founders use the term “art” as representing much the same sense as ancient Attic Greek τέχνη,“practical pursuit, technology.”
The attention to public speaking across the curriculum in the early period is in line with the stated social aims of the Morrill Act of 1862, section 4, which states that its purpose is the “endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college [in each participating state] where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.” The foundation of the University of California depended in large measure on its sale and management of the land provided by the act. It is to be remembered that not only was the Morrill Act enacted during the Civil War, but that its funding was largely provided by the expropriation of Native American tribal lands.
Painted with a broad historical brush, the development of the teaching of speech and rhetoric at Berkeley can be seen as tracking with, if not actually exemplifying, the educational, social, and political aims of the American public in dialogue with the academic staff of the university. By providing training in well-understood techniques of public speaking and public argument, operating mainly in political and forensic spheres of life, teaching and scholarship in speech and rhetoric were seen as useful in everyday life and necessary to a functional democracy.
Requirements for admission to the University in the 19th century, in addition to Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, English Grammar, Geography, and History of the United States, included Latin Grammar, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Books 1-6 of Virgil’s Aeneid, six orations of Cicero, Greek Grammar, and three books of Xenophon’s Anabasis. Entering students, therefore, would have had some exposure to ancient deployment of rhetoric, if not much theory. The first official debating societies at the university were the Freshman and Sophomore Debating Societies established in 1898-99.
Courses in “Elocution and English Composition” “Rhetoric and English Composition,” “Rhetoric,” and “Public and Private Declamation” offered by the English Department were required in each of three annual terms for the first two years of study in each of the Colleges in the College of Arts. Presumably, these skills were deemed essential to students of Mines, and of Agriculture as well as students in the College of Letters. Public Speaking courses were taught first by Charles Mills Gayley, an alumnus of the University of Michigan (and author of its Alma Mater, The Yellow and the Blue!) who discovered an eager student, Martin C. Flaherty, in an 1891 Extension course in San Francisco. He convinced Flaherty to enroll at Cal, where he did well academically, won several debating prizes, and went on to serve as Instructor (1897), Assistant Professor of Forensics (1903), and Associate Professor (1910). [University of California: In Memoriam, 1942, Martin Charles Flaherty, Public Speaking: Berkeley 1872-1942, Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory].
Development
A Department of Public Speaking was established in 1915 with Flaherty as Chair. The curriculum was aimed at undergraduates, with only one or two graduate level offerings, and it was not until 1967, in the run-up to the formation of the Department of Rhetoric, when regular graduate courses in Rhetoric were introduced. The curriculum in 1916-17 emphasized public speaking, cultivation of the voice, oral interpretation, acting, and, interestingly, Bible reading. By 1925, there were more courses offered, but they were still aimed at gaining and cultivating practical skills in argument, oral interpretation, and acting. By 1935, Dramatic Arts was emerging as a larger portion of the department’s offerings, and in 1941 the Department of Dramatic Arts was established.
In 1946-47 the Department of Public Speaking was renamed the Department of Speech. Both the personnel and offerings had, by the end of World War II, expanded. The linguist C. Douglas Chretien and psychologist Edward Barnhart had joined the department and courses in semantics, and in the psychology of argument had been added, along with the reinstitution of courses in oral English for foreign students and introduction of more courses in the history of rhetoric. From 1942 through 1968 historian and legal scholar Jacobus TenBroek was a prominent member of the department. He and Barnhart developed a group major in Communications and Public Policy. By 1955, Speech had again expanded notably adding such figures as historian Woodrow Borah and Frankfurt School sociologist Leo Lowenthal. The department grew to 17 ladder faculty and 12 lecturers.
The evolution of the department’s curriculum and faculty specializations over this period was paralleled on the campus in general, moving toward broader disciplinary scope and away from concentration on the “practical” or “mechanical” arts emphasis of the earlier years of the 20th century. By 1965, the curriculum was still grounded in speech subjects, oral interpretation, argumentation, and debate, and both ladder faculty including professors Beloof and Hagopian, and highly experienced lecturers, including Fred Stripp (also a minister, who had officiated at the marriages of hundreds of Berkeley students and alumni), and Ward Tabler offered many traditional courses. New emphases and approaches were signaled by the hiring of linguists Seymour Chatman and Susan Irvin-Tripp, literary scholars, William Brandt, Leonard Nathan, Todd Willy, and medievalist Janette Richardson. New courses in “Textual Rhetoric and Poetry,” “Textual Rhetoric and Drama” “Speech and Society” and a suite of history of Rhetoric courses, Ancient, Medieval and Modern, were being offered.
In the 1967 Centennial Record history of the Speech department, Chair Robert Beloof points to the ongoing plans for a graduate program in Speech, and the 1967 through 68-69 catalogs list 23 graduate level courses, though there is no description of an actual graduate program. In 1969-70 the department is now called Rhetoric, Graduate Advisers are listed, and even more graduate courses are offered. Faculty are referred to as Professor/Lecturer in Rhetoric. The undergraduate curriculum is listed under 3 rubrics: Oral Interpretation, Speech Sciences, and Rhetoric, Argumentation, and Public Address.
The Turn Toward Theory
By 1985, historians Arthur Quinn and Barbara Shapiro, legal scholar David Cohen, and oral-traditional literature scholar Daniel Melia have joined the faculty. Soon after, Evelyn Fox Keller (history of science) joined the faculty. Traditional speech training and elocution courses have disappeared from the curriculum, courses in film, such as Theories of Film, and Novel into Film are now offered, and the general concerns of the curriculum are more and more theoretical (Rhetoric of Social Theory, Rhetoric of Legal Philosophy). We are also in the period in which the School of Criminology has been abolished, and majors such as Naval Architecture are vanishing. Disciplinary boundaries were being redistributed. Interdisciplinary Programs in Legal Studies and Mass Communication were established composed largely of existing courses in established departments, though, interestingly, neither of those programs included Rhetoric department courses. Film was also an interdisciplinary major program, but its courses were assembled from English, Rhetoric, and a large number of language department courses.
Theory has become central to the department by 1995. Many faculty members whose research and scholarship are largely theoretical and epistemological have joined the faculty: Shadi Bartsch, classical rhetoric, Judith Butler, critical theory, Anthony Cascardi, comparative literature, Carol Clover, film, medieval literature and orality, Bridget Connelly, oral-traditional literature, Marianne Constable, medieval history, legal theory, Frederick Dolan, philosophy, Felipe Gutterriez, law, Michael Mascuch, literature and society, Trinh-T Minh-ha, film and women’s studies, and Kaja Silverman, psychological analysis, film. Courses such as Language, Truth and Dialog, Genre in Film and Literature, Philosophical Discourse, Theoretical Inquiry into Law, Polity, and Society are now regularly offered.
In 1996 a PhD track in Film was established within Rhetoric, and in 2011 Film and Media Studies was recognized as a full Department, following the earlier example of Dramatic Arts.
The 2001-2003 General Catalogue shows not only more faculty members with an interest in theory, but its appearance as an undergraduate path to the BA. Undergraduates may concentrate in: history and theory of rhetoric, public discourse, or narrative and image. Additional faculty members include Daniel Boyarin (religious discourse), Pheng Cheah (Continental philosophy), William Fitzgerald (classical rhetoric), Caroline Humfress ([Roman] law and society); Shannon Jackson (theater), Victoria Kahn (Renaissance literature), Ramona Naddaff (Classical philosophy, French thought), Linda Williams (film), and Michael Wintroub (history). Affiliated faculty include philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Hans Sluga, intellectual historian Martin Jay, and film scholar Anton Kaes. The department now positions “rhetoric” as a master analytic discipline, interested more in examining and teaching about things that are not yet well understood rather than imparting well-understood methods and systems to students. Hubert Dreyfus is reported to have said that he only taught texts that he was still grappling with so that his students could participate in the forming of philosophical judgments.
The 2013-14 Academic Guide explicitly notes at the beginning of the description of the undergraduate program, “The major is not intended to provide skills-based training in in oral argument or communication.” The description of the PhD program states, “Crucial to the department's approach is an investigation into the rhetorical constitution of the arguments of such fields as law, politics, literature, film, and philosophy. The interests of faculty and graduate students thus range throughout these fields and are informed by a critical interest in the rhetoric of disciplines.”
The present description in the department’s “Overview” is: “Rhetoric is not a discipline but a hub of inquiry and experimentation. It is not bounded by objects of study, by chronology, or by any other single factor. In Rhetoric, we train our students to keep one eye on extra-disciplinary thinking while simultaneously mastering traditional disciplinary methods and approaches.”
Current faculty not previously mentioned are evidence of the present breadth and scope of the department’s interests. David Bates (history, artificial intelligence), Samera Esmeir (colonialism and law), Samiha Khalil (postcolonialism, critical race theory), Fumi Okiji (sound and music, black feminist theory), James Porter (ancient Greek and Roman aesthetics, philosophy), Mario Telò (theory of ancient drama, modern reception of ancient drama), Winnie Wong (art history, forgery), Nasser Zakariya (scientific narrative). Affiliated faculty are from the departments of Philosophy, Geography, Anthropology, History, English, Gender and Women’s Studies, Film Studies, and French. Recent lecturers have included Nathan Atkinson, Michael Dalebout, Eileen Jones, †Nadesan Permaul, Nancy Weston, and Mario Wimmer.
—Daniel F. Melia (September 7, 2025)