Bradford
Vivian
Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences,
Director of the Center for Democratic Deliberation in Penn State's McCourtney Institute for Democracy
Expertise:
- Politics & Policy
Focus Areas:
- American Politics
- Campus Free Speech
- Ethics Education
- Historical Commemoration
- Politics
In The Media:
About
- Vivian can speak to how people debate and appeal to the collective memory of past events, such as September 11, 2001.
- Can speak about the debate over free speech on campus, how misinformation and other factors fed into the current "crisis" narrative and what the impact might be not only on academic freedom but also civil liberties and democracy.
Bradford Vivian’s research focuses on theories of rhetoric and public controversies over collective memories of past events. Vivian is the author of “Campus Misinformation” (Oxford University Press), “Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture” (Oxford University Press), “Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again” (Penn State Press) and “Being Made Strange: Rhetoric beyond Representation” (SUNY Press). He is also co-editor, with Anne Teresa Demo, of “Rhetoric, Remembrance, and Visual Form: Sighting Memory” (Routledge). Vivian’s work has also appeared in such journals as the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, History and Memory, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly.
In The Media
Campus Misinformation: An Interview with Dr. Bradford Vivian
from Politics Considered with Bill Gallagher podcast January 27, 2024
DEI education in America actually dates back to the 18th century
from The Washington Post June 13, 2023
"Then, as now, education was a gateway to membership in society."
from The Conversation June 5, 2023
"The quality of public debate over free speech in higher education matters. Government interference with colleges does not punish elites. It rewards deeply cynical views of higher education and restricts a freedom that should be available to all Americans."
To Appreciate Black History, Let Go of Confederate Nostalgia
from The Daily Beast February 8, 2019
"As I’ve shown in my research, sometimes communities decide that previously beloved narratives of the past have become divisive and deserve to be set aside. People often attempt to resolve conflicts rooted in history by adopting an attitude of forgetting. " - Bradford Vivian
A year after Charlottesville, Confederate nostalgia continues to undermine democracy | Opinion
from Philadelphia Inquirer August 10, 2018
"Media fixation on politicians' statements and punditry following the Unite the Right rally overshadowed more difficult and substantive discussions about its meaning."
Lessons on political polarization from Lincoln's 'House Divided' speech, 160 years later
from PennLive February 15, 2018
"Lincoln's description of the Union as a house divided is well-remembered today. But many Americans fail to heed its deeper lessons about equality and the moral foundations of popular government." - Bradford Vivian
In Penn State News
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Preserving Democracy
Americans on both sides of the aisle say the U.S. is at risk of losing its democracy depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The erosion of trust in institutions, including the media, elections and rule of law, has contributed what Gallup found is a record-low percentage of U.S. adults who are satisfied with democracy.