Richard Marcback receives 2014 Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award

Professor Richard Marcback has received a 2014 Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award. In 1974, the Board of Governors, in conjunction with the president, established an annual Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award to be given each year to members of the regular fulltime faculty in recognition of a particular work of merit brought to fruition in the 12-month period immediately preceding the year of the award. Awards made in 2014 are based on accomplishments in 2012-13. The work of merit is a single act or event that constituted an outstanding contribution to scholarship and learning. Since 1975, 201 faculty members have received this award.

Dr. Marcback received his award at the WSU Academic Recognition Ceremony on April 24, 2014. According to the program,

The Board of Governors recognizes Richard Marback for the publication of Managing Vulnerability: South Africa's Struggle for a Democratic Rhetoric (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2012). In Managing Vulnerability, Marback analyzes the tension surrounding the transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa through a rhetorical lens. He explores the dynamics of rhetorical processes in the establishment and maintenance of democracies. Without disputing that rhetorical processes enable a community to engage in democratic processes, Managing Vulnerability acknowledges the inevitable risks that such processes entail to individuals whenever they must act with others to make choices. Through a series of informative case studies, Marback illustrates how the cultivation of openness and the management of vulnerability take shape and give expression to virtues of connectedness over the temptations of autonomy. He highlights the risks and responsibilities of "rhetorical sovereignty" and explores how different groups and individuals in South Africa dealt with those issues. Drawing on the African concept of Ubuntu that grounded many discussions of reconciliation in South Africa, Marback concludes that we become human through our relationships with each other, and that a rhetoric of such vulnerability can nurture our efforts to find common ground.