Stephen E. Lucas is Professor of Communication Arts and Evjue-Bascom Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his master’s and doctorate degrees from Penn State University.
Professor Lucas has been recognized for his work as both a scholar and a teacher. His first book, Portents of Rebellion: Rhetoric and Revolution in Philadelphia, 1765–1776, received the Golden Anniversary Award of the National Communication Association and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His major articles include “The Schism in Rhetorical Scholarship,” “The Renaissance of American Public Address: Text and Context in Rhetorical Criticism,” “The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence,” and “The Rhetorical Ancestry of the Declaration of Independence,” for which he received the Golden Anniversary Monograph Award of the National Communication Association. His most recent book is Words of a Century: The Top 100 American Speeches, 1900–1999.
Professor Lucas has received a number of teaching awards, including the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Wisconsin and the National Communication Association’s Donald Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education. He is featured in the Educational Video Group’s program on the history of American public address, and he appeared on the History Channel’s documentary on the Declaration of Independence.
Professor Lucas has directed the introductory public speaking course at the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 1973. Over the years he has been responsible for numerous teaching innovations and has supervised the training of hundreds of graduate assistants. He has also served as a judge for the major national English-language public speaking competitions in China, has lectured at numerous Chinese universities, has conducted workshops for Chinese instructors on teaching public speaking, and has been instrumental in the development of public speaking as a dedicated course in the English curriculum of Chinese universities. The Art of Public Speaking has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Portuguese, Korean, Romanian, and Japanese.
Stephen Lucas and his wife, Patty, live in Madison, Wisconsin, and have two sons, Jeff and Ryan. His interests include travel, sports, art, and photography.
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