Professor Studies Presidential Eulogies
Nathan McGinnis | May 10, 2006 02:55 PM | Link
In 1997, Michael Dennis was a gradate student in communications at Purdue University when he received news that his father had been killed by a drunk driver. As the oldest of three children, Dennis found himself with the disheartening job of giving his father’s eulogy.
Dennis went over the basic skills he had learned in his communications courses to help him prepare a eulogy and found that he was unprepared for such a job. He sought advice from his then serious girlfriend, Adrianne Kunkel, who had being studying communications with an emphasis in social support and comfort to help him with the eulogy.
Years later in 2003, the now married Kunkel and Dennis used the experience as a basis for a three part series in modern eulogy study.
“It came from something personal and tragic in our lives and trying to respond how we knew through scholarship,” Dennis said.
The first paper in the series studied the public eulogies of Princess Diana, former Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin and the eulogy of the Challenger astronauts given by President Reagan. Also included were the eulogy Dennis gave for his father, and a eulogy given by his father-in-law for wife’s grandmother.
Shortly afterwards the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentering the earth’s atmosphere, killing all astronauts onboard. Media outlets contacted Dennis for questions due to his previous research into the Challenger eulogy. This I turn lead to the topic for his second paper, where he dissects how Presidents eulogize fallen heroes. For the study he examined the eulogies given by Bush for the Columbia astronauts and the eulogy Clinton gave for victims of the USS Cole.
This month, the third paper in their study of eulogies will be published in the scholarly journal Death Studies. The paper, entitled “Grief, glory and political capitol: Presidents eulogizing presidents,” highlights the specific strategies used by presidents to eulogize other presidents.
In the study, Dennis and Kunkel examined the eulogies of Presidents Kennedy, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan given by Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Clinton and Bush respectively.
Studying these eulogies, Dennis identified the eulogists most commonly praise the deceased in the form of deification, suggest action the deceased would have supported and attempt to offer a positive reappraisal of past actions.
First, Dennis identified the deification and appeal to destiny the eulogizers bestow on deceased Presidents. This is a trend that started when the Reverend Samuel Davies prophesized about the future greatness and historical significance of George Washington. Since then, every President has either invoked their religious appointment outright, such as Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, or suggested that they were destined to occupy the position.
Another common tactic for eulogists is to advocate a program or cause important to the former President in order to help people cope and realize the former President’s dream. Dennis found the strongest examples of this in the eulogy of President Kennedy by President Johnson. It was this advocacy the help pass sweeping civil rights legislation and gave NASA momentum to land on the moon.
The most common tactic Dennis identified was the positive reappraisal of past actions by the eulogizer. In his study, Dennis says Clinton, who eulogized President Nixon, used this tactic for both consoling and personal reasons. To a grieving public, positive reappraisal allows the public to find the “silver lining” in the cloud and make things seem not so bad. For Clinton, a positive reappraisal of a President plagued by scandal was all too personal, Clinton was deep in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal and hoped that offering a gentle appraisal off the Nixon’s positive action could help himself in the future.
“Speeches and historians really change the ways future generations view presidents,” Dennis said. “In fact, that’s what Bush is counting on right now.”
Dennis’ research has so far been limited to simply identifying tactics used by eulogizers, no research has been done on their effectiveness in helping a grieving audience. Dennis says further research needs to be done by rhetoricians to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies.