Introduction to the special issue on public health. What the first year of RHM illustrates is that much of the work done by rhetoricians of health and medicine intervenes in pubic conversations either implicitly or explicitly. And when it comes to matters of rhetorical public(s) and the connection to health, more work remains to be done around the concept of “the public” as a linguistic and practical commonplace. Thus, this special issue brings into sharp focus the necessity to coordinate efforts to explore the network of meaning and actions associated with the conceptualization and management of disease and well-being across populations, borders, and histories so as to present a new commonplace of the rhetoric of public health.

Living with global terrorism, global epidemics, and new medical technologies has made risk a dominant theme in the 21st century in terms of both individual action and public policy.This condition has led us to become more occupied with debating, preventing, and managing risks.Risk Society, 1996 Any time we read or watch the news, the global, scientifically saturated nature of the world becomes apparent.Current events pertaining to medical risks in particular have become increasingly significant.Take, for example, the recent Ebola situation in which we have witnessed how infectious disease threat and communication of risk ignite and stoke public frenzy about how to act and whom to blame.Think of the news coverage on whether the "infected Dallas nurse and other innocent bystanders vulnerable to contracting Ebola.Also consider the treatment politically issuedwent for a bike ride.Perceptions of harm get encased in public talk where case scenario" storylines not only dominate and d but also lead to action.In this regard, and in response to her quarantine orders specifically, the

Oral history projects about rhetorical studies contribute to transdisciplinary histories by creating living texts that reflect the dynamism of scholarly cultures. Through interviews conducted at the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology (ARST), we chart the organizational and intellectual history of a field, its contributions to science studies, and its potential future directions. These digitized, archived oral histories serve as an articulation point for transdisciplinary reflection, but they also represent an important strand of digital humanities work that creates living texts and keeps them open for future articulations.