David Timmerman

David M. Timmerman has served as Carthage Provost and Chief Academic Officer since August of 2018. In July 2019, he was named Chief Operating Officer.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, Provost Timmerman went on to earn a Master of Divinity from the Denver Seminary. After earning a Doctor of Philosophy in communication from Purdue University, he began his formal academic career at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1994. There, he worked in roles of increasing responsibility for 16 years, receiving the McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2005.

An accomplished scholar, teacher, and administrator, Provost Timmerman came to Carthage from Monmouth College in western Illinois, where he served as dean of the faculty and vice president of academic affairs. While at Monmouth, he oversaw the development of the college’s academic program, and worked collaboratively with faculty to create successful interdisciplinary programs in global food security, global public health, arts management, and peace and social justice. His scholarship has focused on rhetoric in ancient Greece, and how rhetoric developed as a discipline in conjunction with the birth of democracy and the liberal arts tradition. Provost Timmerman has taught courses such as Citizenship, Classical Rhetoric, African American Rhetoric, and The Rhetoric of Humor.

Provost Timmerman has contributed to a number of books on the subject, most recently as co-author of “Public Speaking and Democratic Participation: Speaking, Listening and Deliberating in The Civic Realm.” Published in 2016, it addresses civic engagement at a time of increasing turbulence in the public realm.

• Ph.D., Purdue University
• M.Div. Denver Seminary
• B.A., U.C.L.A.

• African American Rhetoric
• Citizenship
• Classical Rhetoric
• Cultures and Tradition
• Legal Debate
• Political Debate
• Public Speaking
• Rhetoric of Humor

• The Development of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece
• Rhetoric and Democratic Practice
• Public Speaking as a Liberal Art
• Political Communication
• Religious Rhetoric

Timmerman, David. “A Too Uncommon, Common Good: The Role of Discussion and Deliberation in Vocational Discernment.” In Called Beyond Ourselves: Vocation and the Common Good. Ed. Erin VanLaningham. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2024.

Public Speaking and Democratic Participation: Speaking, Listening, and Deliberating in the Civic Realm. Co-authored with Jennifer Abbott, Todd McDorman, and Jill Lamberton. Oxford University Press, 2016. Jebb’s Isocrates. (Co-edited with Edward Schiappa and Giles Laurén). Charleston, SC: Sophron, 2016.

Faith in the Composition Classroom. Rhetoric Review 32 (2013): 366-367.

Humor, Race, and Rhetoric: “A Liberating Sabotage of the Past’s Hold on the Present.” (Co-authored with Grant Gussman and Daniel King). Rhetoric Review 31 (2012): 169-187.

Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse. (Co-authored with Edward Schiappa). Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Midway Between Slavery and Citizenship: Black Freedmen in White Protestant Sermons in the Immediate Post Civil War Period. Robert Ellison (Ed.), A New History of the Sermon, 19th Century. Liden: Brill. (2010).

Rhetoric and Democracy: Pedagogical and Political Practices. (Co-edited with Todd F. McDorman). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2008.

Christian Pacifism and the Prophetic Voice: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Peace Address. Journal of Communication and Religion 28 (2005): 153-171.

The Aristotelian Fix: 4th Century Perspectives on Political Deliberation. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 32 (2002): 77-98.

Contemporary Pedagogy for Classical Rhetoric: Averting the Reductionism of Classical Opposition. In Enos, Richard Leo, Beard, David E., Yoder, Sarah, and Hermanson, Amy (Eds.), Advances in the History of Rhetoric: The First Six Years. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2007 [Reprint, 2000].

Isocrates’ Competing Conceptualization of Philosophy. Philosophy and Rhetoric 31 (1998): 145-159

The 1992 Presidential Candidate Films: The Contrasting Narratives of George Bush and Bill Clinton. Presidential Studies Quarterly 26 (1996): 364-373.

The World According to Pat: The Telepolitical Celebrity as Purveyor of Medicine. (Co-authored with Larry D. Smith). Political Communication 11 (1994): 233-248.

Ancient Greek Origins of Argumentation Theory: Plato’s Transformation of Dialegesthai to Dialectic. Argumentation and Advocacy 29 (1993): 116-123.