cfp.english.upenn.edu

Writing Democracy: A Rhetoric of (T)Here March 9-11, 2011, TAMU-Commerce
full name / name of organization:
Federation Rhetoric Symposium, English Graduates for Academic Development, Texas A&M University-Commerce
contact email:
writingdemocracy@gmail.com

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Federation Rhetoric Symposium, March 9-11, 2011
Texas A&M-Commerce, Commerce, Texas

Writing Democracy: A Rhetoric of (T)Here

Increasingly, humanities scholars and educators are attending to the local, the everyday, the public, and the “ordinary.” Trends like these in rhetoric and composition suggest the field has taken what Paula Matthieu has called “the public turn” (Tactics of Hope, 2005) and foreground the real-world implications of and applications for our work. Such trends also illuminate tensions and stark contrasts between constructs like public and private (Welch, Living Room, 2008), local and global (Gold, Rhetoric at the Margins, 2008), here and there, us and them (Duffy, Writing From These Roots, 2007).

It is in this sense that local rhetoric both connects--at times literally--and separates us from the rest of the world. Thus, March 9-11, at Texas A&M-Commerce, we bring together scholars, researchers, historians, students, journalists, archivists, artists, and teachers to examine our various and expanding notions of (t)here with the following questions in mind:

• How do we “write democracy”?
• How do we identify the local, the global, and democracy in everyday contexts?
• To what end(s) might we identify and draw boundaries around here/there? us/them? local/global? What role does this identification play in a participatory democracy?
• How might local rhetoric enable change (locally, regionally, nationally, globally)?
• What is local rhetoric’s role in promoting equity, social justice, and/or democracy for both here and there?
• How might local rhetoric hinder equity or other aspects of social justice?
• How might local and global rhetoric be embedded in a variety of texts and to what end?
• To what extent has “the public turn” across the disciplines, including composition studies, already begun this process through engagement in university-community research and projects? And how might something like the Federal Writers’ Project, part of FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s, serve to link all our projects nationwide to tell America’s story today in its local and global contexts as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?

For the 2011 Federation Rhetoric Symposium, we invite proposals for panels (3-5 presenters), individual papers, poster presentations, video presentations, or other formats that address any aspect of the conference theme, especially with respect to the shifting dimensions of the local rhetorical landscape in an increasingly global world. We understand this theme to be inherently interdisciplinary in nature, thus we seek proposals in areas that include Rhetoric and Composition, Linguistics, Literacy Studies, Film Studies, Pop Culture, English Studies, and American Studies, and all areas of the Humanities (including Art, History, Drama, Creative Writing). We also request proposals from journalists, librarians, curators, archivists, and others concerned with preservation and access.

Keynote Speakers include Nancy Welch, University of Vermont, David Gold, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, John Duffy, University of Notre Dame, David Jolliffe, University of Arkansas-Lafayette, and Michelle Hall Kells, University of New Mexico, Elenore Long, Arizona State University, and Jerrold Hirsch, Truman State University, . Please note conference updates for details about confirmed speakers and other items of interest (http://writingdemocracy.weebly.com/)

The Federation Rhetoric Symposium is part of an annual series “A Symposium in Rhetoric” that has welcomed many notable speakers to North Texas since the first meeting in 1973. These keynoters have included Patricia Bizzell, Deborah Brandt, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Sonja Foss, Richard Enos, Cynthia Self, James Kinnevy, Kenneth Burke, Wayne Booth, Stephen Toulmin, and many others.

**Deadline for Submissions of 250-Word Abstract: JAN 15th, 2010, with notifications by early January 2011**
Electronic submission preferred. Registration and additional conference information available soon at conference website.

Email submissions to writingdemocracy@gmail.com

Ground mail submissions to Shannon Carter, Department of Literature and Languages, Texas A&M-Commerce, PO Box 3011, Commerce, Texas 75429-3011