Matthew P. Smith

Matthew P. Smith specializes in rhetoric and composition studies, first-year writing pedagogy, literary regionalism, and virtue ethics. His recent publications include a book chapter on post-Civil War New Orleans literature that appears in New Orleans: A Literary History (Cambridge University Press) and an article in Southern Quarterly on aesthetics, narrative, and plantation tourism. In addition to composition and expository writing classes, he also teaches “Aristotle in New Orleans,” a service-learning course in which Tulane students train to become speech and debate coaches at local charter schools. The seminar explores ethics, the good life, rhetoric, oratory, the history of race and public education in New Orleans, and it also interrogates the limits and possibilities of service learning as an institutional practice.