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Paul Lynch, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Department of English

Education

Ph.D. in English, Purdue University 2008

Research Interests

Lynch’s primary interests are in the rhetoric of religion, rhetorical theory, and writing pedagogy.

Publications and Media Placements

Books

  • Lynch, Paul. Persuasions of God: Inventing René Girard’s Rhetoric. Transdisciplinary Series in Rhetoric, The Pennsylvania State University Press, forthcoming 2024.
  • DePalma, Michael-John, Paul Lynch, Jeffrey Ringer, eds. Rhetoric and Religion in the 21st Century, Southern Illinois University Press, forthcoming 2024.
  • Lynch, Paul and Nathaniel Rivers. Thinking with Bruno Latour in Rhetoric and Composition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2015.
  • Lynch, Paul. After Pedagogy: The Experience of Teaching. Studies of Writing and Rhetoric Series. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2013.

Articles and Chapters

  • Lynch, Paul. “Rhetoric and Religion.” Cambridge History of Rhetoric, Volume 5. Edited by Daniel Gross, Steven Mailloux, and LuMing Mao, Cambridge UP, 2025.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Catholic Rhetorical Education: A Curricular Proposal.” Journal of Catholic Higher Education, forthcoming 2025
  • Lynch, Paul. “Writing as a Spiritual Exercise.” Composition Forum, special issue on Mindfulness, 2025
  • Lynch, Paul. “Almost Empty Places: Jesuit Mission and Identity as Rhetorical Topoi.” Power and Protest at an American University: No Confidence, No Fear. Edited by Ellen Carnaghan and Kathryn Kuhn, (2020): 108-26.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Recovering Rhetoric: René Girard as Theorhetor.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. 27 (2020): 101-122.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Shadow Living: Toward Spiritual Exercises for Teaching.” College English. 80.6 (2018): 499-516.
  • Lynch, Paul. “On Care for Our Common Discourse: Pope Francis’s Nonmodern Epideictic.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 47.5 (2017): 463-482.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Rescuing Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke, René Girard, and the Forms of Conversion.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 24 (2017): 138-159.
  • Lynch, Paul. “The Attractions of Imperfection: Pope Francis’s Undisciplined Rhetoric.” Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society 5.1 Web. 2015.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Composition’s New Thing: Bruno Latour and the Apocalyptic Turn.” College English 74.5 (2012): 458-76.
  • Johnson, Kristine and Paul Lynch. “Ad perfectam eloquentiam: The ‘Spoils of Egypt’ in Jesuit Renaissance Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review 31.2 (2012): 99-116.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Unprincipled Pedagogy: Casuistry and Postprocess Teaching.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 11.2 (2011): 257-83.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Composition as a Thermostatic Activity.” College Composition and Communication 60.4 (2009): 728-745.
  • Lynch, Paul. “‘Ego Patricius, peccator rusticissimus’: The Rhetoric of St. Patrick of Ireland.” Rhetoric Review 27.2 (2008): 111-130.
  • Lynch, Paul. “Something Completely Different: Notes Toward a Burkean Ethics.” KB Journal: The Journal of the Kenneth Burke Society 5.1. Web. 2008.
  • Johnson Sheehan, Richard and Paul Lynch. “Rhetoric of Myth, Magic, and Conversion: Ancient Irish Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review 26.3 (2007): 233-252.
  • Lynch, Paul. “‘Trying Not to Talk Alike and Succeeding’: Bakhtin’s Authoritative and Internally Persuasive Word in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.” Studies in the Novel 38.2 (Summer 2006): 172-186.

Non-Refereed Scholarly Publications

Lynch, Paul. “Toward a Rhetorical Crisis in the Catholic Church.” Church Life Journal, 26 February 2024, https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/toward-a-rhetorical-crisis-in-the-catholic-church/.

Lynch, Paul. “A Friendly Injustice: Kenneth Burke, René Girard, and the Rhetoric of Religion.” Re-inventing Rhetoric Scholarship: 50 Years of the Rhetoric Society of America. Eds. Roxanne Mountford and David Tell, Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2020. 88-97.

Marshall, Laura Hardin and Paul Lynch “English 1900: A Writing (and Writing Program) Laboratory.” Composition Studies, 48.3 (2020): 83-102.

Lynch, Paul and Matthew J. Miller. “Twenty-Five Years of Faith in Writing: Religion and Composition” Present Tense 6.2 (2017). (A 200+ item annotated bibliography on religion and composition with a 4700-word critical introduction.)

Lynch, Paul, ed. Prison Dictionary. Saint Louis University College in Prison Program, Prison Arts Program, 2015.

Lynch, Paul. “The Rhetoric of Apostasy: Christopher Hitchens at War with the Left.” Concord and Controversy: Proceedings of the 2010 Rhetoric Society of America Conference. Eds. Antonio de Velasco and Melody Lehn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum, 2011. 235-45.

Honors and Awards

2023 Ignite Seminar Teacher of the Year, University Core

2018 Article of the Year Award from the Religious Communication Association for “On Care for Our Common Discourse: Pope Francis’s Nonmodern Epideictic.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 47.5 (2017): 463-482.

2010 James H. Korn Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award, Reinert Center for Teaching Excellence