Professor James Arnt Aune passed away January 8, 2013 leaving behind his loving wife Miriam, his two sons Nicola and Daniel, and legions of devoted students and colleagues. Born in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and educated at St. Olaf College (BA summa cum laude, 1975) and Northwestern University (PhD 1980), Jim had been a faculty member of the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University since 1996 and had served as its Department Head since 2011.

Jim always thought of himself more as a student than as a distinguished scholar, even though his many academic achievements- including the National Communication Association's Distinguished Scholar Award, Diamond Anniversary Book Award, and the "Teachers on Teaching" Outstanding Educator Award-belied his status as not only an exemplary mentor and teacher, but also a leading scholar of Rhetorical Theory, Freedom of Speech, Economic Rhetoric, Legal Rhetoric, and Political Rhetoric. He is perhaps best known for his books Rhetoric & Marxism and Selling the Free Market as well as his many essays published in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Philosophy & Rhetoric, and Rhetoric & Public Affairs.

Jim read voraciously and could seemingly discourse about any topic at great length, making us all feel smarter by his own brilliance-we will all miss our conversations with him. Jim believed deeply in public argument and would never shy away from public or private debate-we will all miss our model interlocutor. Jim always championed the causes of those with less power over those with more power-we will all miss our heroic defender. Jim always made the time to chat, email, share a smoke or a story with his many friends, students, and colleagues-we will all miss his witty banter, his kind words of encouragement, and his gentle nudges to believe in ourselves. We will all miss our brilliant, irascible, loving, patient, and generous friend, colleague, and mentor-Jim was a prince among academics and we are all lucky to have learned from him.

Jim loved to bring poetry into his classrooms, his blog posts, and his scholarship, and so it is appropriate to conclude with these few lines from Joseph Rudyard Kipling, which is the last poem he posted to his Facebook:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

In lieu of flowers Jim’s family asks that donation be made to the Autism Society of America and the Texas Gulf Coast Vizsla Club Rescue.

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Communication Research and Theory Network a service of the National Communication Association www.natcom.org/CRTNET
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Jim Aune (submitted by Brad Serber)
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Brad Serber, serberus@psu.edu

I am deeply saddened by the loss of Jim Aune. It's only fitting that I was re-reading Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do" when I heard the news. I recently graduated from Texas A&M, and Jim was my M.A. adviser. Of course, for me, and for many of the people in his life, Jim was so much more than that. He has been, and will continue to be, a great source of comfort for me. As a young Minnesotan Jew, it was scary for me to move to Texas in 2010, and, as much as Jim might have been uncomfortable with identity politics, he and I bonded over our shared identities at the university he jokingly referred to as "The Neo-Confederate Technical Institute for Creation Science." The word "teacher" doesn't do justice to the role Jim played in my life; Jim was my Texan rabbi. Every time I walked into his office, I was overwhelmed by how many books filled his shelves and by how he admitted, while warning graduate students about impostor syndrome, that he still worried he hadn't rea!
d enough. But the wisdom Jim taught me outside of the classroom educated me more than all of the knowledge that could be found in those books. Even "rabbi" doesn't quite fit the role Jim played in my life. When I lost my father in May 2011, Jim also became, at least in my mind, my Texas dad. As I struggled through a tough year of losses, I took comfort in the words of the b'rachah (prayer) that Jim wrote for the first day class (see http://rsa.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/4156). As with my real father, I will miss my Texas dad for his humor, wisdom, guidance, and care for others. As we say in the Jewish tradition, zichrono livrachah, "may his memory be a blessing."

Brad Serber
Ph.D. Candidate and Research Fellow
Dept. of Communication Arts & Sciences
Penn State University

When I saw this, I was filled with shock and surprise. My prayers are with his family. He will certainly be missed.

By some strange providence I was reading Jim's _Selling the Free Market_ yesterday when I heard the horrible news. Before I heard, as I was reading, I was thinking gosh, what a generous thinker. He opens up the book declaring himself an 'old-fashioned socialist,' but then goes on to talk about how much he's learned from coservative thinkers. A rare spirit. I'll miss him greatly.

A three-minute introduction to Aune by his undergraduate speech coach, Jim Pratt, along with a ten-minute lecture on modernity and rhetoric, can be found here:
http://ias.umn.edu/2009/10/22/the-modern-rhetoric-project/

Additionally, there is an interesting conversation between Joshua Gunn, Bill Keith, Alan Gross, Debra Hawhee and Jim recorded a few slots further down on the same site.

There is nothing intensely personal about this set of videos. But they are a virtuoso performance of the intersection of social theory and rhetoric. It is also a recitation of his experience in the discipline, a wonderful connection to his teacher (I first met Aune at a panel at NCA to honor Jim Pratt -- an amazing thing to see, someone of Jim's stature on a panel devoted to his teacher at a small liberal arts college), to his friend and contemporary as a graduate student (my colleague Elizabeth Nelson speaks a few minutes in). He declares himself a "reconstructed Adorno." He also says provocative things like "Modernism is the first artistic movement without ground in rhetoric..."

And for me, it is a reminder of his generosity -- this is the second visit to Minnesota Jim made, reiterating the notion that scholarship and friendship are intertwined.

...

Thanks also to Richard Cherwitz for reminding us of the body of Aune's work, available in some small part here:
http://tamu.academia.edu/JamesAune

http://www.forevermissed.com/jim-aune/#lifestory

Such a very wonderful soul. He made A&M feel like home for me. How could someone so beloved not feel it for himself? He will certainly be remembered as a dedicated teacher and friend. I am heart broken.

My eyes are filled with the tears now. I just don't know when they will dry up. Hole in my heart is too big...and it's too deep to fill in.

The Blogora will no doubt do something formally to remember and to celebrate Jim Aune.
But in the meantime, for those who do not use social media, the outpouring on his FaceBook wall has been incredible -- both prayers for Jim and, poignantly, final comments addressed to Jim.

I have downloaded some of them to share here (https://docs.google.com/a/d.umn.edu/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZC51bW4uZ...), tonight (Tuesday) at 9pm. They are 6 pages in length. I will do the same tomorrow, as I am sure they will continue to grow.

I have nothing eloquent to say, here. I'm just so, incredibly sad. What a terrible loss.

So very sorry. . . . .Hearts go out to family and friends.
RH

Devastation.