Erik Doxtader

Erik Doxtader is a scholar of rhetoric. Born in 1966 in Fort Collins, Colorado, Doxtader took a BA at the University of Kansas and both an MA and Ph.D. from the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. 
Doxtader is a professor of rhetoric in the Department of English at the University of South Carolina: https://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/our-people/faculty-staff/doxtader_erik.php. He is the current editor of Philosophy & Rhetoric, a quarterly journal published by the Pennsylvania State University Press, and the co-founder and co-director of the Conference on Rhetorical Theory.https://rhetoricaltheory.org/
Doxtader is a former Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, a leading non-governmental organization in Cape Town, South Africa.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26818 He was a 2000-2001 fellow in the SSRC-MacArthur program in Peace and Security in a Changing World. His book, With Faith in the Works of Words: The Beginnings of Reconciliation in South Africahttp://msupress.org/books/book/?id=50-1D0-3C07#.XVmgm5NKjs0, received the 2010 Rhetoric Society of America's book award.https://rhetoricsociety.org/aws/RSA/pt/sp/awards
== Rhetoric, critical theory and institutional argument ==
Doxtader's formal study of rhetoric began at the University of Kansas, under the supervision of Donn Parson, and continued at Northwestern University (1989-1997), where he worked closely with the late Thomas B. Farrell and G. Thomas Goodnight. His first publication, an essay that has since been anthologized, announced what would become a standing concern for the conceptual connections between contemporary rhetorical theory, argumentation, and Frankfurt School critical social theory. Doxtader's doctoral workhttps://philpapers.org/rec/DOXTWA culminated in an archival study of open and declassified documents that considered the ways in which American Cold War defense institutions articulated the nature, dynamics, and value of nuclear policy to public audiences and how such declaratory policy confounded the democratic deliberation that it claimed to protect. From 1992-1995, Doxtader held a lectureship in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California-Berkeley. This post proved decisive, in part as it led to further work on the relationship between rhetorical theory and continental philosophy.
Doxtader's early work was heavily influenced by his involvement in intercollegiate academic (NDT) debate. After debating for the leading program at the University of Kansas, including a fifth place finish in the 1988 National Debate Tournament, he served as an assistant coach for the Northwestern Debate Society, then led by Charles Kaufman and the late Scott Deatherage. Doxtader is one of the few individuals to have judged five of the National Debate Tournament's final rounds. He later served as an assistant director of the National Debate Tournament.https://web.archive.org/web/20041025082208/http://www.wfu.edu/organizations/NDT/
== Reconciliation, transitional justice and human rights ==
In 1995, after joining the rhetoric-communication faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Doxtader began work on the rhetorical architecture of Eastern European transitions to democracy"Characters in the Middle of Public Life: Consensus, Dissent and Ethos," Philosophy and Rhetoric 33 (200): 336-369., and the dynamics of reconciliation in the South African transition from apartheid to constitutional democracy. 
In 1999, Doxtader received a two-year fellowship to study the rhetorical history of reconciliation in South Africa. Sponsored by the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation's program, Peace and Security in a Changing World, the fellowship initially took Doxtader back to Berkeley, where he undertook study of the theological dimensions of reconciliation, in part with Giorgio Agamben, who was then completing his book on Pauline letters.Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Translated by Patricia Dailey. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 
Between 2000-2002, Doxtader worked exclusively in South Africa, first at the University of Cape Town and then at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR). At the University of Cape Town, he served as a faculty associate in the Centre for Rhetoric Studies, a research group founded and led by one of Africa's leading scholars of rhetoric, Philippe-Joseph Salazar. In 2001, Doxtader received the IJR's International Research Fellowship, an award that then led to his being named one of the Institute's long-term research fellows. 
In 2002 and again in 2004, some of Doxtader's early theoretical and historical work on reconciliation in South Africa was awarded the National Communication Association's Golden Anniversary Monograph Award for the "most outstanding scholarly monograph(s) published during the previous calendar year.""Making History in a Time of Transition: The Rhetorical Occasion, Constitution, and Representation of South African Reconciliation," Rhetoric and Public Affairs 4 (2001): 223-260."Reconciliation - A Rhetorical Concept/ion," Quarterly Journal of Speech 89 (2003): 267-292.
Between 2002 and 2007, while continuing work in South Africa, Doxtader served as a member of the faculty in the University of Wisconsin's Department of Communication Arts. During this period, he began a long-term collaboration with Charles Villa-Vicencio, the former Director of Research for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and then the IJR's Executive Director. Concerned with the dynamics and limits of transitional justice, this collaboration resulted in five books, including a groundbreaking volume on amnesty.The Provocations of Amnesty: Memory, Justice and Impunity. Co-Edited and introduced with Charles Villa-Vicencio (Cape Town: David Phillip, 2003).
In 2007, Doxtader accepted a faculty post in the rhetoric group at the University of South Carolina. That same year, he and Phillip-Joseph Salazar published the first English language collection of primary documents detailing the historical influences, legislative development, and work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: The Fundamental Documents. CO-Edited and introduced with Philippe-Joseph Salazar (Cape Town: David Philip and New Africa Books, 2007).
A number of these documents played a central role in Doxtader's subsequent book, With Faith in the Works of Words: The Beginnings of Reconciliation in South Africa. Awarded the Rhetoric Society of America's 2010 book prize for "the best work in rhetorical study in a given year," this volume was the first to trace how the idea of reconciliation shaped religious rationalizations of apartheid, the struggle against white domination, the transition to constitutional democracy, and the deeply contested development of South Africa's TRC. 
Doxtader has published over 50 articles and book chapters in the areas of rhetorical theory, with particular emphasis on the dynamics of socio-political recognition, transitional justice, and human rights discourse. He is a regular contributor to South African media outlets. In 2012, he began work as partner investigator on a project funded by the Australian Research Council, a multi-year inquiry into resistance to reconciliation in Australia, South Africa, and Northern Ireland.
== Editorships and Conference Series Direction ==
Doxtader is the current editor of Philosophy & Rhetoric, an international journal published by the Pennsylvania State University Press. Prior to assuming the editorship in 2018, he served as the journal's book review editor for twelve years. 
Doxtader is also the co-founder and co-director of the University of South Carolina Conference on Rhetorical Theory, a biannual event that was launched in 2009 and which brings together leading scholars of rhetoric.http://www.uscrhetoricaltheory.com/
== Monographs and Edited Volumes ==
The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring: A Season of Rebirth? Co-Edited with Charles Villa-Vicencio and Ebrahim Moosa. (Washington DC/Cape Town: Georgetown University Press/University of Cape Town Press, 2015). 
In the Balance: South Africans Debate Reconciliation. Co-Edited with Fanie du Toit. (Cape Town: Jacana Press, 2010).
Inventing the Potential of Rhetorical Culture. Edited and introduced. (College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010). 
Faith in the Works of Words: The Beginnings of Reconciliation in South Africa, 1985-1995. (Cape Town: David Philip/Lansing: Michigan State University Press, June 2009).
Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: The Fundamental Documents. Co-Edited and introduced with Philippe-Joseph Salazar (Cape Town: David Philip and New Africa Books, 2007). 
Pieces of the Puzzle: Keywords on Reconciliation, Transitional Justice and Social Reconstruction. Co-edited and introduced with Charles Villa-Vicencio (Cape Town: OneWorld Books, 2005)
Provoking Questions: An Assessment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Recommendations and their Implementation. Edited and introduced (Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2005). 
To Repair the Irreparable: Reparation and Reconstruction in South Africa. Co-Edited and introduced with Charles Villa-Vicencio (Cape Town: David Philip, 2004, Second Printing 2006).
The Provocations of Amnesty: Memory, Justice and Impunity. Co-edited and introduced with Charles Villa-Vicencio (Cape Town: David Phillip, 2003).
Through Fire with Water: Violence, Transition, and the Potential for Reconciliation in Africa – Fifteen Case Studies. Co-edited and introduced with Charles Villa-Vicencio (Cape Town: David Phillip, 2003). 
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