International Conference on Rhetoric, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia, April 19-22, 2012.

This conference (April 19th – 22nd 2012) in honour of Ivo Škarić is an international conference aiming at presentation of new scientific research and knowledge within the interdisciplinary field of rhetoric and argumentation theory. Professor Emeritus Ivo Škarić was interested in various areas of phonetics, defined as the science of speech. Exploring the phenomenon of speech communications, he revealed a natural connection between phonetics and rhetoric both in education and evaluation of public speakers (politicians, teachers, speakers in the electronic media, etc.). One of the results of his scholarly work is The School of Rhetoric for gifted high school students, which now bears his name. His students and colleagues wanted to name the new event after him – this time as a synonym for the scientific conference devoted to subjects in which he was the indisputable authority in Croatia. The organizers hope that this meeting will become a permanent meeting point for rhetorician from around the world in order to contribute to the development of rhetoric.

Keynote Speakers:

LEO GROARKE began his academic career as a student at the University of Calgary, Simon Fraser University, the University of Helsinki, and the University of Western Ontario. He received his Ph.D. in 1982. Before coming to the University of Windsor, he was Professor of Philosophy at Wilfrid Laurier University. He was appointed Provost/Vice-President Academic at the University of Windsor in 2010. Prof. Groarke’s areas of research and scholarly interest include ancient philosophy, the history of ideas, social and political philosophy, informal logic and argumentation theory. He has published many articles and books.

IGOR Ž. ŽAGAR studied philosophy, sociology, and linguistics in Ljubljana, Paris, and Antwerp. He received his doctoral degree in Sociology of Culture from the University of Ljubljana. He is Professor of Rhetoric and Argumentation (University of Maribor) and Senior Research Fellow (Head of the Centre for Discourse Studies) at the Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has lectured in Belgium, United States, Italy, China, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Romania, Poland, and France. Žagar’s interests lie in pragmatics (speech act theory, (critical) discourse analysis), philosophy of language, argumentation, and rhetoric.

Conference topics include, but are not limited to:

• Argumentation and Law
• History of Rhetoric
• Rhetoric and Philosophy
• Media Rhetoric
• Rhetoric of Political Discourse
• Rhetoric of Religious Discourse
• Rhetoric of Scientific Discourse
• Rhetoric in Education
• Argumentation Theory

http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/dis/

"Rhetoric in the 21st Century," Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford, July 3-7, 2012.

Keynote speakers include: Brian Vickers and James J. Murphy.

For further information, visit:

http://www.cmrs.org.uk/research/rhetoric-in-the-twenty-first-century-summer-2012

or

http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/asset_manager/get_file/39555/rhetoric_in_the_21st_century_oxford_symposium.pdf

"Re/Framing Identifications," 15th Biennial Conference, Rhetoric Society of America, Philadelphia, May 25-28, 2012.

Given our Philadelphia conference site, the theme “Re/framing Identifications” obviously invites a consideration of the framers and the framing of the U.S. Constitution in the late 18^th century—that is, a consideration of the convergence of people and events that reframed colonies’ identifications with each other, with European, African and Asian nations as well as with North, Central and South American nations, including Native nations. But the theme “Re/framing Identifications” also invites a broader consideration of myriad historical and current instances when people, communities, and systems have elected and/or been forced to reframe their identifications. Kenneth Burke famously asserted the importance of identification to persuasion, but this conference pushes on Burke’s claim to ask: What may we learn about rhetoric if we focus on identification not just as a means to persuasion but as a place of perpetual reframing that affects who, how, and what can be thought, spoken, written, and imagined?

The theme “Re/framing Identifications” invites papers that ask: What exigencies trigger reframed identifications and disidentifications? What rhetorical tactics are employed in such reframings? How are such reframings experienced differently, even violently, depending on power differentials of parties involved? In these reframings, what is named and unnamed? What is possible and impossible? What is ethical and unethical? What is effective and ineffective? What are benefits and what are costs? What is gained and what is lost? What can and what cannot transfer to the rhetorics of our world today?

This theme offers conference attendees—who identify as scholars, teachers, students, and citizens across a wide range of ideologies—an opportunity not only to extend our scholarly knowledge of rhetorical histories, theories, tactics, technologies, geographies, and practices but also to extend our roles as public intellectuals by discussing how to name, analyze, evaluate, teach, and take action rhetorically on challenges facing our world, challenges that include but are not limited to debates about national/ transnational politics, global economies, immigration, the environment, energy, digital/social media and other technologies, disabilities, international women’s rights, sexual identity, ethnic divisions, racism, religion, academic freedom, and war.

http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/pt/sp/conferences

"Medicine, Health, and Publics," Association for the Rhetoric of Science & Technology (ARST) Preconference, held in conjunction with the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) Biennial Conference, Philadelphia, May 24-25, 2012.

Health and medicine occupy increasingly prominent places in public discourse with citizen advocates playing significant roles in developing, engaging, and critiquing biomedical texts and practices. But how, exactly, have diverse stakeholders used rhetoric to shape the discourses and practices of health and medicine? This preconference will address the multiple ways that publics and the medical establishment mutually influence one another. Preconference papers should extend theory, criticism, and/or practice related to the rhetoric of medicine and publics by addressing one or more of the following themes: the roles of new media in health advocacy, the place of direct-to-consumer advertisements in public health discourse, the successes and failures of health-related social movements, expert and lay health risk discourses, biomedical stakeholder engagement initiatives, the construction of publics in medical rhetoric, or any another topic that directly speaks to the preconference theme. Papers and presentations reflecting diverse methods spanning conventional and critical-cultural rhetorical analysis, ethnography, interviewing, discourse analysis, and hybrid methods are welcome. The strongest submissions may be invited for revision for publication in a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Medical Humanities on "Medicine, Health, and Publics," edited by Lisa Keränen.

http://www.arstonline.org/index.html

"Contemporary Rhetorical Citizenship: Purposes, Practices, and Perspectives," Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, Section of Rhetoric, University of Copenhagen, January 15-18, 2013.

With the concept of rhetorical citizenship we want to draw critical attention to the ways in which being a citizen in a modern democratic state is in many respects a discursive phenomenon. Citizenship is not just a condition such as holding a passport, it is not just behavior such as voting; citizenship also has a communicative aspect: Some perform citizenship when they watch a political debate on TV or discuss a program about homeless people with their colleagues over lunch - or when, one day, they don’t duck behind the fence but engage their cranky neighbor in conversation about her views on city street lighting. Others enact citizenship when they engage in political debates on Facebook or Twitter or join their friends in coming up with the most poignant wording for a protest sign the day before a street demonstration. And for others still, “rhetorical citizenship” is a distant ideal far from the realities of their everyday life; because the legal citizenship, literacy, and media access that such a conception of citizenship often presupposes aren’t within their reach, their experience with rhetorical citizenship is one of exclusion.

Rhetoric, with its double character as academic discipline and practice, stands in a unique position to engage the linguistic and discursive aspects of collective civic engagement. Drawing on and in collaboration with neighboring fields of inquiry such as political science, discourse studies, linguistics, media studies, informal logic, practical philosophy and social anthropology, scholars of rhetoric are able to study actual communicative behavior as it circulates in various fora and spheres – from face to face encounters to mediated discourse. With our diverse theoretical and methodological backgrounds we hold many keys to pressing concerns such as the alleged polarization and coarsening of the ‘tone’ in public debate, the turning away from political engagement toward smaller spheres of interest, and the general difficulty in making politics work constructively in many parts of the world, not least the EU.

We invite attendees – scholars, teachers, students, and citizens across a range of disciplinary traditions – to extend our knowledge of the social roles of rhetoric through theoretical and critical study, and to consider our roles as public intellectuals: how are we to name, describe, criticize, analyze, and, indeed, undertake or teach rhetorical action on matters of communal concern whether locally, nationally, or internationally?

We invite papers that help address questions such as, e.g.:

• How is rhetorical citizenship to be defined and developed as a critical frame for studying rhetoric in society?
• What conditions must obtain for rhetorical citizenship to be possible and thrive?
• What rhetorical processes and maneuvers can be observed in practitioners of rhetorical citizenship?
• How is rhetorical citizenship instantiated across genres, settings, and cultural or geographical settings?
• How is rhetorical citizenship experienced differently, even controversially, depending on power differentials and social or regional constraints?
• How can rhetorical history and pedagogy serve as a resource for contemporary theory, practice and critique of rhetorical citizenship?
• What disciplinary connections need to be made or reinvigorated for fruitful interdisciplinary work on rhetorical citizenship?
• What are potentials and pitfalls for sound and dynamic public rhetorical engagement?
• What is good and what is poor rhetorical citizenship? 

http://rhetoricinsociety.hum.ku.dk/

"Philosophy and Rhetoric," Boston College, March 2012.

Keynote Speakers:
John Lysaker, Department of Philosophy, Emory University
Colin Heydt, Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida
Marina McCoy, Department of Philosophy, Boston College

Traditionally, philosophy as the art of rational argumentation has been distinguished from rhetoric as the art of persuasion. However, the analytic grounds for this distinction are not immediately evident
and the borders between them are often porous. As a mode of address philosophy makes its appeal to rational intelligence more narrowly conceived, while rhetoric makes its appeal to a more expansive human intelligence, which encompasses dimensions of affectivity and historicity. Yet, when philosophical or rhetorical argumentation succeed this seems to require and appeal to both reason and
affectivity.

And so the uneasy relationship between philosophy and rhetoric continues to be reconceived throughout the history of philosophy. Recent debates in the philosophy of language, for example, have questioned the structures and stability of language and the role that it plays as the ground of both sound argumentation and the art of persuasion. Much work in moral and political philosophy has examined the roles of rational, affective, and historical reasoning in the formation of our basic moral and political beliefs. The relationship between philosophy and rhetoric seems to hold further implications for fields as diverse as political philosophy, informal logic, philosophy of language, ethics, meta-philosophy, literary theory, and hermeneutics.

This conference invites thoughtful papers examining the nature of this relationship in any of its conceptions throughout the history of philosophy as well as in contemporary analytic and continental
discourses. Papers are to be prepared for blind review, and should not exceed 4000 words. Applicants may forward their submissions to philgrad@bc.edu.

"Rhetoric and Performance," Nineteenth Biennial Conference, International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ISHR), Chicago, July 24-27, 2013.

The Society calls for papers that focus on the historical aspect of the theory and practice of rhetoric. The special theme of the conference will be “Rhetoric and Performance.” Papers dedicated to this theme will explore the theory and practice of rhetorical delivery, the historical contexts of rhetorical performance, the performativity of rhetorical texts, and other related topics.

Papers are also invited on every aspect of the history of rhetoric in all periods and languages and the relationship of rhetoric to poetics, literary theory and criticism, philosophy, politics, art, religion, geographic areas and other elements of the cultural
context.

http://ishr.cua.edu/

"Rhetoric and its Masses," Annual Symposium, American Society for the History of Rhetoric, Philadelphia, May 24-25, 2012.

“There are in fact no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses.” (Raymond Williams, 1958)

In virtually every epoch of its history, rhetoric has understood the masses as a topoi of central concern. The “masses” has a history as fluid as “rhetoric” itself: in every age it has captured different ideas, been entangled with different politics, signaled different segments of the population, and intersected with rhetoric in historically specific ways.

The 2012 Symposium will focus on these intersections, seek to recapture the historically specific ways in which rhetoric and the masses have been articulated, and pay special attention to the political motives attending these articulations.

The Symposium seeks to understand rhetoric and its masses from as wide a perspective as possible. Appropriate topics include, but are not limited to: rhetorics both to and from the masses, anxieties about the hoi polloi and/or the dêmos, various understandings of “mass communication” and the technologies that underwrite them, propaganda studies, publicity, and the invocations of crowds, mobs, herds, classes, imagined communities, the people, publics, counter-publics, etc. Further, the Symposium welcomes attention to the anxieties that have historically attended invocations of the masses: contagions, vulgarity, disorder, devaluation, chaos, regimentation, etc.

http://www.ashr.org/Symposia.html

Fish, Stanley. "The Triumph of the Humanities." Opinionator Blog. NEW YORK TIMES June 13, 2011.

If interpretive methods and perspectives are necessary to the practice of geography, they are no less necessary to other projects supposedly separate from the project of the humanities. And that is why, in addition to GeoHumanities, we now have Biohumanities (“the humanities not only comment on the significance or implications of biological knowledge, but add to our understanding of biology itself” — Karola Stotz and Paul E. Griffiths), Disability Studies (of which the X-Men films might be both a representation and an instance), Metahistory (the study of the irreducibly narrative basis of historical “fact”), Law and Literature (the laying bare of the rhetorical and literary strategies giving form to every assertion in the law), Cultural Anthropology (an inquiry into the very possibility of anthropological observation that begins by acknowledging the inescapability of perspective and the ubiquity of interpretation), Cultural Sociology (“the commitment to hermeneutically reconstructing social texts in a rich and persuasive way” — Jeffrey C. Alexander and Philip Smith), and other hybrids already emergent and soon to emerge.

What this all suggests is that while we have been anguishing over the fate of the humanities, the humanities have been busily moving into, and even colonizing, the fields that were supposedly displacing them. In the ‘70s and the ‘80s the humanities exported theory to the social sciences and (with less influence) to the sciences; many disciplines saw a pitched battle between the new watchwords — perspective, contingency, dispersion, multi-vocality, intertextuality — and the traditional techniques of dispassionate observation, the collection of evidence, the drawing of warranted conclusions and the establishing of solid fact. Now the dust has settled and the invaded disciplines have incorporated much of what they resisted. Propositions that once seemed outlandish — all knowledge is mediated, even our certainties are socially constructed — are now routinely asserted in precincts where they were once feared as the harbingers of chaos and corrosive relativism.

One could say then that the humanities are the victors in the theory wars; nearly everyone now dances to their tune. But this conceptual triumph has not brought with it a proportionate share of resources or institutional support. Perhaps administrators still think of the humanities as the province of precious insights that offer little to those who are charged with the task of making sense of the world. Volumes like “GeoHumanities” tell a different story, and it is one that cannot be rehearsed too often.

Visit: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/the-triumph-of-the-humanities/.

Cfp: "Rhétorique et traduction," Société d’Etudes des Pratiques et Théories en Traduction (SEPTET) and Laboratoire Ligérien de Linguistique (LLL), Université d’Orléans, January 26-27, 2012.

Pour les Latins, le terme de Traductio désignait une figure de rhétorique. On mesure ainsi la pertinence d’une rencontre portant sur les liens entre traduction et rhétorique. Aujourd’hui, la rhétorique, tout comme la traduction, rapproche des champs disciplinaires variés : linguistique, littérature, anthropologie culturelle, philosophie du langage, etc.

Les différents axes de travail suivants pourront être explorés:

1. La traduction et la nature de la rhétorique

La rhétorique peut-elle être encore aujourd’hui conçue comme un ajout, un supplément d’âme et de présentation, voire même un masque (plutôt qu’un visage) ? Autrement dit, la rhétorique cessant progressivement de se confondre comme dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine avec l’art de dire, mais aussi de penser, peut-elle être confondue avec un ensemble de procédés, qui sans être strictement ornementaux, l’engage néanmoins dans le sens d’une esthétique seconde, comme c’est le cas chez un Fontanier par exemple ? Le traducteur doit-il alors considérer qu’un « contenu » invariant est ainsi masqué ? Par voie de conséquence, la rhétorique peut-elle se confondre avec un aspect de l’art du traducteur qui serait de faciliter (mais aussi éventuellement d’agrémenter) la lecture ? Les dimensions clairement « rhétoriques » du texte-source (par exemple les questions précisément dites « rhétoriques », liées à la seule gestation du texte) doivent-elles être gommées dans le travail du traducteur?

La rhétorique du traducteur a-t-elle une dimension « critique » ? Est-elle censée véhiculer (aussi) le point de vue singulier du traducteur ? Quelle est la part de la rhétorique dans le fait qu’historiquement les traductions ont si souvent fait l’objet d’adaptations marquées par la censure, l’idéologie, la volonté pédagogique, etc ? Quels sont les liens avec l’argumentation ? Le texte, la « lettre », doivent-ils dans l’acte de traduire s’effacer derrière des intentions, représentationnelles, polémiques et autres ? La rhétorique est-elle une « technique » ou un art « tactique ? Le traducteur doit-il être rusé?

Doit-on à rebours s’attacher à relever, comme le fait un Dumarsais, des liens étroits entre grammaire et rhétorique (nonobstant le trivium médiéval) ? La rhétorique, au contraire de l’idée commune, plonge-t-elle ses racines au cœur même de la langue ? Quelles seraient les conséquences d’une réponse positive pour la traduction?

2. La traduction entre champs rhétorique, poétique et émotionnel

Quels sont les liens entre rhétorique en tant que visée d’action, proche de la pragmatique moderne et poétique en tant qu’imitation d’action (mimesis) ? La traduction doit-elle être conçue comme une action, rendre le texte-source toujours plus efficace, ou doit-elle déployer et explorer les sources de sa propre poéticité

La rhétorique est-elle délibérément « cibliste » ? Est-elle idiosyncrasique, un art différent dans chaque langue particulière… ou relève-t-elle au contraire de techniques tendanciellement universelles?

La distinction entre rhétorique et poétique ne serait-elle pas une conséquence d’une vision réductrice de ce qu’était la rhétorique des origines, celle d’Aristote, comme semblent en attester certaines des plus récentes traductions de son texte fondateur et qui montrent l’indissociabilité non seulement des propriétés sémantiques et esthétiques du langage, mais aussi de ses propriétés esthétiques et poétiques? 

On pourra s’interroger sur l’instabilité du statut de l’émotion et de ses inscriptions passionnelles dans le champ rhétorique. Qu’à l’occasion d’un événement émotionnel, on convoque le concept de thymie en sémiotique, ou tout autre concept affine, comment cette « subconscience » où se déploient les instances affectivo-émotives est-elle saisie dans l’acte traductif ?

3. Rhétorique et traduction dans leurs dimensions philosophiques et sémiologiques

D’une part: 

la rhétorique ne serait-elle pas au fond de nature philosophique ? Peut-on y voir l’art même de former des concepts en les délivrant?

la rhétorique se confond-elle avec la pragmatique moderne (wittgensteinienne, austinienne …)?

D’autre part :

Quels liens avec la sémiologie et/ou la sémantique discursive et textuelle ? Comment la traduction doit-elle prendre en compte des effets comme l’idiomaticité, le cliché, le stéréotype, l’emblèmatisation, les « métaphores conceptuelles », etc. Les questions évidemment décisives de l’analogie, de la polysémie, de l’implicite, de l’inférence, comme mécanismes de production des textes sont-elles rhétoriques et relèvent-elles à ce titre d’un chapitre autonome de l’art du bien traduire ?

Et finalement:

Quels liens entre rhétorique, traduction et phénoménologie : le « contenu » peut-il être distingué de son apparaître, de ses modalités de donation ? L’essence figurale du langage renvoie à l’expérience immédiate, au « corps vécu » ? La traduction est sans arrêt confrontée à cette alternance de présentation (figurale, motivée, phénoménologique) et la gestation de contenus de représentation. Tout accès au réel est partiel, de l’ordre de l’esquisse, mais il s’impose avec la force du tout : ce que la tradition figure en termes - trop analytiques - de métaphore, métonymie, synecdoque, etc. renvoie à cette réalité en quelque sorte anthropologique. Mais très différemment d’une langue à l’autre. Comment la traduction doit-elle affronter ce problème?

Visit: http://philosophyoftranslation.blogspot.com/2011/05/rhetorique-et-traduction.html.

Patterson, Steve. "Sexism and the Idea of the Great Speech: the GUARDIAN's Classicist on Rhetoric." RAIL February 27, 2011.

Many in the field of rhetoric, I’ll wager, are happy to see an article about their discipline at all in a major newspaper like the Guardian. Being a philosopher myself I sympathize with the sort of small-town-ish “Hey! They’re talking about US!!” feeling engendered by articles like Mary Beard’s What makes a great speech? The article itself, however, is rather a letdown in terms of what it communicates to the reader about rhetoric.

Let me begin in fairness by noting that Mary Beard is a well-known classicist in the UK. Thus it is not surprising that her treatment of rhetoric here focuses primarily on sources and examples drawn from Greco-Roman antiquity. Be this as it may, she speaks in a general voice here about rhetoric and so her discussion is disturbingly incomplete. Rather than showing rhetoric as the very active and modern discipline that it is, her focus on the ancients gives the impression that the study of rhetoric ended with Cicero. She makes no mention at all of any figures in the history of rhetoric between antiquity and the present day. Not even foundational figures of contemporary rhetoric like Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, get a mention, to say nothing of figures lesser known outside rhetoric but equally if not more important within it like Burke, Richards, Toulmin, or Henry Johnstone Jr.. Though to her credit she avoids rehashing the standard Platonist objections to rhetoric, Beard’s presentation is rendered somewhat shallow by her lack of modern sources. . . .

Read the rest here: http://railct.com/2011/02/27/sexism-and-the-idea-of-the-great-speech-the-guardians-classicist-on-rhetoric/.

Beard, Mary. "What Makes a Great Speech?" GUARDIAN Ferbruary 26, 2011.

When the Greeks read of Demosthenes speaking through the pebbles, or trying to make himself heard above the waves, or declaiming loudly as he climbed up hill, almost out of breath, they were grasping an important truth of ancient culture: that the art of public speaking could be learned, that the techniques of oratory were teachable. In a culture in which oral persuasion counted for almost everything in politics, it was crucial to believe that public speaking was a skill that could be acquired by almost anyone who was prepared to put in the hard work.

Ancient literature was full of advice to would-be orators. Although they are little read now, even by the most devoted students of Latin and Greek, volumes of this stuff survives, dealing with everything from how to move your hands or when to make a joke, to the rhythms, cadences and structures of effective oratory. And Roman boys (the rich ones at least) spent most of their school days practising the art of speech-making. Some of these school exercises still survive: "Defend Romulus on the charge of having killed Remus", the kids were asked; or "Make a speech advising Agamemnon whether or not to sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia". The Roman equivalent of the national curriculum was committed to training boys to speak persuasively, even on these flagrantly fictional topics.

The modern world has largely inherited the ancient view that oratory is a matter of technique. True, we do have a romantic notion that some people are "naturals" at public speaking – whether it is something in the air of the Welsh valleys that produces the gift of the gab, or the "natural" sense of timing that great orators share with great comedians. But modern speech-writers always stress the importance of technique, and they advocate many of the same old tricks that the ancients used ("group your examples into threes", they advise – that's the classical "tricolon", which was taken to extremes in Blair's famous "education, education, education" soundbite). . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/26/kings-speech-oscars-mary-beard.

Cfp: "Feminist Challenges or Feminist Rhetorics? Locations, Scholarship, and Discourse," Eighth Biennial Conference on Feminisms and Rhetorics, Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, University of Minnesota, Mankato, October 12-15, 2011.

The conference committee is strongly interdisciplinary and therefore our theme seeks to recognize the spaces between disciplines and communities. The conference theme is meant to acknowledge the academic and socio-discursive spaces that feminisms, and rhetorics on or about feminisms, inhabit. Major political, religious and social leaders have recently discussed feminism, including the Dalai Lama, but the discussion seems to revolve around cultural or essentialized discourses of feminism.

This spotlight on feminism is, of course, not new, and they ways feminism is engaged in public discourse is much different than that of academic discourse. However, in Rhetoric and Composition, we have seen many significant publications lately focusing on what it means to be a woman in the field, how to be a successful woman in the field, and the connections between feminist theory and feminist pedagogy.

We seek proposals that speak to the challenges and diversities of feminist rhetoric and discourse, in public and private life, in the academy, and in the media. We welcome proposals on topics that significantly engage disciplines other than Rhetoric and Composition, and that have consequences for communities located outside of the academy.

Questions to consider include:

What are the discourses of feminism?
Where are they located?
What does feminist scholarship look like in the 21st century? What is the politic of feminist scholarship?
How does feminist inquiry impact our understanding of scholarship?
What are the challenges faced by feminists inside and outside of the academy? Where do we find feminist rhetorics?
How do we understand the function of feminist rhetoric?
How has interdisciplinarity impacted the feminist agenda?
How do we understand the politics of inclusion in 21st century feminism?
How might we add to Joanna Russ’ invective: “She wrote it, BUT.?”

In the past few years, women have made, yet again, publicly recognized strides in breaking through a variety of glass ceilings, however, current events in places like Arizona, illustrate the necessity of a renewed feminist politic. The recursive nature of feminism is not new, and is, in fact, embodied in the rhetorical struggle for place in dominant discourse.

Visit: http://femrhet.cwshrc.org/.

Cfp: The Rhetoric of Religion, MEMPHIS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY JOURNAL (Spring 2012).

The Memphis Theological Seminary Journal is seeking papers for its Spring 2012 issue. The theme of the issue is Rhetoric and Religion. We seek submissions that examine the relationships and intersections of rhetoric and religion. This includes but not limited to:

The theory and practice of rhetoric and religion
Forms of communication addressed to gods or God or gods
The religious rhetoric of any religious or non-religious (secular) tradition
God talk among different groups, cultures, or within institutions
The role of religious discourse in the public arena
The relationship between speaker and audience within a religious context
The role of rhetoric in the religious studies curriculum
Rhetorical analysis of certain religious texts, such as scripture, sermons, and theological writings
Religious rhetoric and the role of power
Rhetorical histories of any tradition, event, or time period
Rhetoricaltrajectories of religious leaders
Prophetic rhetoric
Religious rhetoric and the role of women

The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2011.

Please send all essays to Andre E. Johnson at rhetoricandreligion@gmail.com.

"The Populist Front: On the Role of Myth, Storytelling and Imaginary in Populist Movements," Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, March 18, 2011.

Welcome & Introduction

• Jorinde Seijdel - editor-in-chief Open: Cahier on Art and the Public Domain
• Merijn Oudenampsen - guest editor Open 20

First Panel: Populism in Theory

• Rudi Laermans & Koen Abts - Sociologists, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, "The Populist Triangle: People, Leader, Establishment"
• Oliver Marchart - Political Theorist, Universität Luzern, "Populism in Political Theory and Visual Culture"
• Sara R. Farris - Political Theorist, Universität of Konstanz, "Populism Unveiled: The Defence of Women as the Founding Myth of the New-Right"

Q&A

Lunch break

Second panel: Imagery & Myth

• John Kraniauskas - Latin American Studies, Birkbeck University London, "Eva Peron as the Image of Peronism"
• Sven Lütticken – Art Critic, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, "A Heteronomous Hobby: Report on the Netherlands"
• Aukje van Rooden - Philosopher / Literary Theorist, Universiteit Utrecht, "The Myth of Modern Politics"

Q&A

Tea and coffee break

Presentation:

• Steve Lambert – Artist / Intelligent Troublemaker, "Constructing Small Scale Temporary Utopias"
• Screening of the film Museum Songspiel, Followed by Q & A with filmmakers Chto Delat – Art Collective, Sint Petersburg / Moscow

Cfp: "Voice," Annual Meeting, American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR), National Communication Association, New Orleans, November 17­-20, 2011.

The American Society for the History of Rhetoric invites submissions of program proposals and competitive papers. ASHR welcomes work that examines both the theory and practice of rhetoric in all periods and languages, and that deals with the relation between rhetoric and politics, law, philosophy, religion, poetics and other cultural issues and contexts.

The Society welcomes papers related to NCA’s convention theme “Voice,” understood in a multi-faceted manner. However, submissions need not be restricted to this conference theme. All submissions relevant to the interests of the Society are welcome.

For further information, visit the Association website: http://www.ashr.org/.

Pub: RHETORICAL REVIEW 8.2 (2010).

• Lois Peters Agnew, Outward Visible Propriety: Stoic Philosophy and Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorics (Jon Viklund);
• Robert J. Penella, ed. Rhetorical Exercises from Late Antiquity: a Translation of Choricius of Gaza’s Preliminary Talks and Declamations (David Westberg);
• James M. Wilce, Language and Emotion (Sara Newman).

Download the reviews here: http://www.nnrh.dk/RR/oct10.html.

Annual Seminar, Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology, San Francisco, November 13, 2010.

The Association for Rhetoric of Science and Technology is again hosting its annual pre-conference prior to NCA. We invite scholars to submit works in various stages of progress. One of the strengths of the pre-conference is that it is a fairly intense day-long set of interactions, ideal for non-traditional presentations or projects in relatively early stages. Presentations addressing any aspect of the ways in which communication impacts the production, dissemination, and utilization of scientific knowledge are invited, using any methodological or theoretical approach. Our goal for this year’s pre-conference is to begin with a wide variety of brief scholarly presentations, and then build on those insights to address some of the perennial tensions in rhetoric of science. Conversation last year focused on several topics that we are looking to develop further, including:

• Risk communication and assessment
• Public engagement
• Negotiation of expertise
• Private/public boundary
• Health as scientific rhetoric
• Governance in science/policy
• Other issues as appropriate

Visit the conference website here: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/pt/sd/news_article/29524/_PARENT/layout_details/false.

Cfp: "Rhetoric and Writing across Language Boundaries," 22nd Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, Pennsylvania State University, July 10-12, 2011.

Developments in globalization, new media literacies, and postcolonial perspectives have called attention to the transnational flow of people and texts and to the hybridity of language itself. These developments have made scholars in rhetoric and composition aware of the monolingual assumptions informing their disciplinary discourses and pedagogical practices. With scholars considering such issues, there are calls now to understand the cross-language relations of writers and writing in an effort to reconfigure the discourses and practices of our discipline.

In light of these disciplinary trends, the 22nd Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition will focus on defining a multilingual rhetoric and writing practice. Featured speakers include leading scholars who address multilingualism in their research and scholarship. We invite you to share your reflections and research on this theme.

Visit the conference website here: http://www.outreach.psu.edu/programs/rhetoric/index.html.

4th Biennial Summer Institute, Rhetoric Society of America, University of Colorado, Boulder, June 20-26, 2011.

Seminars:

Seminar 1: Composing Multimodal Rhetorics, Anne Frances Wysocki (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee)and Dennis A. Lynch (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee)

Seminar 2: Rhetoric’s Critical Genealogies, Jim Jasinski University of Puget Sound), Vanessa Beasley (Vanderbilt University), Chuck Morris (Boston College) and Kirt Wilson (Pennsylvania State University)

Seminar 3: Communicating Science to 21st Century Audiences, Alan G. Gross (University of Minnesota)

Seminar 4: Digital Humanities and the History of Rhetoric, Ned O’Gorman (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Ekatrina Haskins (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and Kassie Lamp (Arizona State University)

Seminar 5: Rhetoric in the Schools—A Seminar for Denver Metro and Boulder High School Teachers, Roger Cherry (Ohio State University) and David Jolliffe (University of Arkansas)

Workshops:

Workshop 1: Mass Communication in Rhetorical History, Peter Simonson (University of Colorado) at Boulder and Dave Tell (University of Kansas)

Workshop 2: Rhetoric’s Materiality, Greg Dickinson (Colorado State University) and Brian Ott (University of Colorado at Denver)

Workshop 3: The Possibility and Limits of Human Rights Discourse, Gerard Hauser (University of Colorado at Boulder) and Erik Doxtader (University of South Carolina; Institute for Justice and Reconciliation [Cape Town])

Workshop 4: Communication and Social Justice in a Global Age, Stephen John Hartnett (University of Colorado at Denver)

Workshop 5: The Intersections of Rhetoric and Ethnography, Ralph Cintron (University of Illinois at Chicago), Phaedra Pezzullo (Indiana University) and Candice Rai (University of Washington at Seattle

Workshop 6: Klal Rhetorica: Jewish Rhetorical Traditions, Janice W. Fernheimer (University of Kentucky) and David Metzger (Old Dominion University)

Workshop 7: Remembering as Citizens, Bradford Vivian (Syracuse University) and Carole Blair (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Workshop 8: Science, Controversy, Policy, Jean Goodwin (Iowa State University)

Workshop 9: Non-rational Rhetorics, Debra Hawhee (Pennsylvania State University) and Diane Davis (University of Texas at Austin)

Workshop 10: The Local Public Sphere: Deliberation and Community, Linda Flower (Carnegie Mellon University) and Elenore Long (Arizona State University)

Workshop 11: Medicine and Its Publics, Lisa Keränen (University of Colorado at Denver) and J. Blake Scott (University of Central Florida)

Workshop 12: Emerging Genres, Carolyn R. Miller (North Carolina State University) and Victoria Gallagher (North Carolina State University)

Workshop 13: Critical Discourse Analysis, Tom Huckin (University of Utah) and Jenny Andrus,(University of Utah)

Workshop 14: "Free" Speech and the Production of Truth in Rhetoric, Susan C. Jarratt (University of California at Irvine) and Katherine Mack (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs)

Workshop 15: Going Deep with "The New Rhetoric", Linda Bensel-Meyers (University of Denver), James Crosswhite (University of Oregon), David Frank (University of Oregon) and John Gage (University of Oregon)

Workshop 16: Rhetoric, Difference and Practical Criticism, Lester Olson (University of Pittsburgh)

Workshop 17: Rhetoric, Latin American and Latino/a Rhetoric, Lisa Flores (University of Colorado at Boulder) and Damian Baca (University of Arizona)

Workshop 18: Technological Rhetorics, Jordynn Jack (University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill) and Jeremiah Dyehouse (University of Rhode Island)

Workshop 19: Rhetorical Leadership, David Kaufer (Carnegie Mellon University), Ron Placone (Carnegie Mellon University) and Gregory Clark (Brigham Young University)

Workshop 20: RSA Career Retreat for Associate Professors, Cheryl Geisler (Simon Fraser University) and Patricia Roberts-Miller (University of Texas at Austin)

Download the seminars and workshops here: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/pt/sd/news_article/37167/_PARENT/layout_details/false.