rhetoric and composition

PAMLA 2021

“Rhetorical Theory”
Las Vegas, 11/11-14, 2021

Chair: Dr. Ryan Leack, USC

“Rhetoric is a coproductive function of circulation in excess of human intention, which collapses rhetoric and persuasion into the rhetorical, a process of world making that extends relationality into future publics.” 

—Byron Hawk, Resounding the Rhetorical (2018)

This panel will explore recent movements in rhetorical theory writ large, either in connection with or apart from composition theory and practice. Special attention will be given to proposals that engage with the conference's theme. 

 We invite international PhD students and emerging scholars to come together to consider the myriad ways that our contemporary and established traditions of rhetorical theory and criticism inform global flows of meaning-making. This year’s theme, “Rhetorical Cultures: Mapping Global Publics and the Crossroads of Democracy,” encourages broad-based reflection, inquiry, and collaboration, taking stock of the emergent rhetorical practices that shape and undergird the political world today in all of its contingency and heterogeneity.

118th PAMLA ConferenceLas Vegas, Nevada | November 11-14, 2021Sahara Las Vegas Hotel

In today’s world, the function of the English classroom has fundamentally shifted. Instead of teaching the fully paper-based curriculum of the past, instructors of English now must incorporate genres that encompass anything from videos to website creation. 

In the study of literature, rhetoric, and composition, too, the field is beginning to recognize new and more multimodal forms of scholarship. Think of Kairos, the online only rhet/comp journal. Think of the work of scholars like Kristen Arola, Cynthia Selfe, and Qwo Li Driskill—work that asks us to think outside the box of the academic paper. 

The (B)end of (Hi)story: beyond postmodern narrative

Call for Papers

How to Do Things with Worlds

18th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference

Department of English, Indiana University, Bloomington

Dates: TBA [but virtual]

Keynote: TBA

“A ‘world’ need not be a construction of a whole society. It may be a construction of a tiny portion of a particular society. It may be inhabited by just a few people. Some ‘worlds’ are bigger than others.”

• Maria Lugones, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception” (1987)

Routledge Studies in Creative Writing
Editor: Graeme Harper

Associate Editor: Dianne Donnelly

Oral History Workshop

The workshop is designed for students, young scholars independent researchers and history, culture and tradition enthusiasts who would like to improve their academic skills, introduce oral history in their work, engage with oral tradition and also record and preserve unwritten stories.

The CEA Mid-Atlantic Review is the official publication of the College English Association Mid-Atlantic Group and is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published annually. We specialize in literary and cultural criticism, discussions of pedagogy, public humanities work, book reviews, personal essays concerned with the teaching of English, and creative writing related to literature or teaching.  The CEA Mid-Atlantic Review believes that scholars and creative writers should be paid for their labor. Authors of published pieces will receive a $20 honorarium.

Coronavirus disease with its global and local pandemic has been on the top agenda of Government leaders, scientists, health professionals, as well as on the daily headlines across journalistic media. New governmental measures, decrees, scientific recommendations, and sanitary campaigns  emerge everyday to combat or alleviate the pandemic which are endorsed and spread through mainstream media. On one hand, a new discourse and rhetoric has been articulated to create, support, and even impose a ‘new normal’ that reconfigures how human beings communicate, interact, and socialize in public and private spaces.

The SWCA Board is excited to announce that the 2021 Southeastern Writing Center Association conference will be held fully online. Join us Feb. 11-13, 2021, to discuss the transformations writing center professionals and the field undertake during times of crisis and trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, social unrest, natural disasters, and significant changes in the structure and leadership of higher education have greatly accelerated the pace of these changes and prompted all of us in the writing center field to reconsider many aspects of our approaches to writing center work and everyday operations. Writing center professionals are called not just to react, but to proactively transform their identities, missions, and services.

Vernon Press invites chapter proposals on Gamification in the RhetComp Curriculum. The volume will be edited by Christopher McGunnigle, Seton Hall University.

Throughout the past decades, gamification has become an increasing part of training experiences. To define the term quickly, gamification involves the application of gameplay mechanics to normally non-game-based activities to increase successful activity and performance. Gamification can involve the use of popular video games, adaptations of game shows like Jeopardy, simple chalkboard games like Hangman, or a variety of rhetorical approaches that introduce gaming components into another field.

It is 50 years since the publication of Jacques Derrida’s « La mythologie blanche: la métaphore dans le texte philosophique » in the journal Poétique (1971). As the proofs of La mythologie blanche held in the archives testify, the essay draws on the course Théorie du discours philosophique that Derrida taught between 1969 and 1971. The essay, which at the time sparked an important debate, has today receded from the forestage of philosophical discussion. In the original course, Derrida explores the relationship between philosophy and other discourses and the possibility of a theory of philosophical discourse.

Request for Chapters

Embodied Environmental Risk in Technical Communication: Local and Global Contexts

Deadline for Proposal Submissions: October 15, 2020.

We invite chapter proposals from both scholars and practitioners of environmental and disaster risk communication for an edited collection which the ATTW Book Series Editor, Tharon Howard, has invited us to submit for consideration for the research line of the ATTW Book Series in Technical and Professional Communication.