Communication Student Curates Historic Kenneth Burke Recording

Michael O’Brien, a 2025 graduate from the B.A. in Communication program, wrapped up his senior year with a significant Walsh Archives Time Machines grant. The Time Machines project was launched by Seton Hall’s Archives and Special Collections in 2023. Each year, five undergraduate students complete research projects using artifacts from the Special Collections center. O’Brien and his fellow students presented their projects at the Petersheim Academic Exposition in May of 2025.

Kenneth Burke (1897-1993) was the most prominent rhetorician of the 20th century, and he spoke at Seton Hall multiple times. For this project O’Brien transcribed a VHS tape of Burke’s 1987 speech and produced a podcast convening scholars to discuss it.

Burke was a very well-known communication theorist, writer and poet. He focused on literary theory, specifically on rhetoric as symbolic action. Burke was 90 at the time of his visit to the university in 1987, when he was joined by his collaborator Dennis Donoghue and together, they discussed Marianne Moore, an enormously successful 20th century poet. Burke worked as her secretary during the 1920s at The Dial, a celebrated literary journal.

O’Brien was already familiar with Burke from coursework, and for this grant he collaborated with his COMM 1610 "Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication" professor Jon Radwan, Ph.D., The pair coordinated with Walsh Library and Public Services Archivist Quinn Christie, who supervised the project for the Special Collections department. Christie shared her enthusiasm to assist with such meaningful work.

Mickey's project highlights how student research in archival collections can benefit the broader community. By sharing a transcript of a previously hidden document in our collections, he brought it to life and contributed to scholarly conversation about Kenneth Burke on a global scale. This is exactly the kind of impact we hope our students will achieve through the Time Machines initiative.

After transcribing the recording, O’Brien hosted College of Human Development, Culture, and Media Dean Bryan Crable, PhD., professor of communication James Kimble, PhD., and Radwan on a podcast, where they discussed O’Brien’s findings. Radwan explained the historical significance of the work.

Within rhetorical studies, Burke is a 20th century giant. He gave our field a critical  vocabulary for communication research that is still enormously influential. In July 2025, I  will travel to the Burke archive at Penn State University and work on developing the  manuscript for review. It’s exciting when curious and hard-working students like Mickey  recognize value in Burke and his theories. Collaborating with him, Dean Crable, Dr. Kimble and the Walsh Library Archives on this grant project has been a very positive  experience.

Looking back, O’Brien felt that the project was meaningful and that it provided him with a valuable experience that has set him up for the future. “Overall, I feel the project was a success. Doing the research gave me a new perspective on how to find and apply archival material. The effort I put into this project will be translated to anything I do [in the future.]” 

Categories: Arts and Culture, Research