ARST Oral History Project--An Interview with Dr. David Depew

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 David Depew, Professor Emeritus from the University of Iowa, features discussion of: *Philosophy and history of evolutionary theory to the rhetoric of evolutionary theory *The importance of studying scientific racism *Falling under the spell of rhetoric *The scale problem in rhetoric of science *How digital publication is changing the attention patterns of scholars *The resilience of ethos, pathos, and logos as analytical tools *From the Sokal Hoax to Steve Fuller: dealing with radical social constructionists *The complementarity between studies of internal rhetorics and public rhetorics *why Mozart is no better for hooking up neurons then the Rolling Stones *The beauty of having a critical mass of rhetoric of science scholars *Making the move to internationalizing the rhetoric of science *The necessity of finding audiences in other fields *Why using the lowest metatheoretical structure is necessary for knowledge to cross fields ("what you call memes, we call topoi!" *The distinctions between "trickle down" rhetoric, expressive rhetoric, and argumentative rhetoric *Why rhetoric is a reflective enterprise that rivals philosophy in explaining science and society *Using POROI as part of a multi-tiered publication strategy