West Coast Rhetoric Scholarship Workshop Opening Public Talk

Steven Mailloux is President’s Professor of Rhetoric at Loyola Marymount University. Previously, he taught rhetoric, critical theory, and U.S. cultural studies as Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Chancellor’s Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of a number of books on rhetoric and a co-editor of Interpreting Law and Literature (Northwestern 1988). He also served in several administrative positions during his years at UCI including Associate Dean of Humanities for Graduate Study, Acting Director of the UC Humanities Research Institute, Director of the Critical Theory Emphasis, and Interim Chair of English and Comparative Literature. 

Francis J. Mootz III (Jay) is Dean and Professor of Law at McGeorge School of Law and previously served as Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Professor of Law at UNLV. Dean Mootz writes in traditional doctrinal areas such as insurance, contract, and sales law and has also taken on an ambitious agenda of interdisciplinary scholarship exploring relationships between law and contemporary European philosophy. His scholarly focus is the philosophy of interpretation and rhetorical philosophy and their relationship to legal education and practice. He is a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the interdisciplinary journal, Law, Culture and the Humanities, was a Member of the Board of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws from 2006 until 2012, and was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2012. He also is the author of a number of books, including Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice and Critical Legal Theory (University of Alabama Press 2006).