Our guest is Christian Lundberg. He is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Professor Lundberg’s current research focuses on theories of the public sphere as a social and discursive form, and on the animating principles for public discourses and identities. He is interested in these questions both at the level of theories of the public, and at the level of specific practices of public discourse. At the level of theories of the the public, his current project “Lacan in Public” works through the implications of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis for thinking the rhetorical character of publics as social formations and of the public discourses that circulate within them. In addition, Professor Lundberg has written a number of articles that unpack forms of discourse constituting specific publics, with special attention to the intersection between publics and religious discourse in Islam and Evangelical Christianity.

At the level of specific practices of public discourse and pedagogy, his work focuses on rhetorical theory, and on debate and public speaking as critical democratic forms.

On this program we discuss Professor Lundberg’s essay entitled “Dueling Fundamentalisms” published in Communication and Cultural/Critical Studies 4 (March, 2007): 106-110.