James “Jerry” Murphy

It is with deep sorrow that I share the news that a great friend of the University Writing Program, James “Jerry” Murphy, passed away on Friday, December 24, 2021, at the University Retirement Community in Davis. Jerry was 98.

Jerry was Professor Emeritus of English and of Rhetoric and Communication at UC Davis. He came to the University in 1965 after having taught at St. Mary’s College, Stanford, and Princeton. At Davis, he was a founding member and chair of the Department of Rhetoric and Communication, and he also served in 1968 as Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs. Among accomplishments at Davis was his winning a University Teaching Award.

As a scholar, his research in classical and medieval rhetoric was groundbreaking and earned him international renown. He was one of the four founding members of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric and first editor of its journal, Rhetorica. Before his retirement in 1991, he had published some 60 journal articles and book chapters, and authored or edited nine books. He became a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, a Distinguished Scholar in the National Communication Association, and a fellow of the Rhetoric Society of America. In France, he was honored as a chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques.

As a publisher himself, he founded and managed Hermagoras press from 1983 until its purchase by Taylor and Francis in 1995. Hermagoras press was responsible for the Landmark Essays Series, which published some of the most important work in Rhetoric and Composition Studies during those years.

Even after his retirement in 1991, Jerry Murphy remained a prolific scholar in classical, medieval, and early modern rhetoric, with six more books to his credit. Right up to the time of his passing, he was contributing to research, with his latest contributions as co-editor of the 4^th edition of A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to the Modern United States (Routledge, 2020) and as co-editor of the newly-published Oxford Handbook of Quintilian.

In the most recent decade, he contributed to the work of the University Writing Program and of the PhD Designated Emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies through his co-leadership of the Rhetoric-at-Davis Research Cluster. With funding from the Davis Humanities Institute, Rhetoric-at Davis brought to campus such speakers as Andrea Lunsford, Jeanne Fahnestock, Charles Bazerman, Laurent Pernot, Ramon Martinez, Cheryl Ball, Sarah Arroyo, Bahareh Alaei, and Krista Ratcliffe.

It was one of the highlights of my own professional life that I was able to work closely with Jerry during the past ten years, both through Rhetoric-at-Davis and in creating the new edition of A Short History. It has been a true honor to work with him both within and beyond his life as a scholar. I shall always cherish the opportunities he gave me. May he truly rest in peace.

Christopher Thaiss