2006 M/MLA Annual Convention
November 9-12, The Palmer House Hilton
Chicago, Illinois

Conference Theme: High/Low Culture

Proposed Special Session: "Popular Persuasions: The Rhetorics of
Identity in Popular Culture"

Individuals are confronted with an array of persuasive discourses that
shape popular notions of identity. From the ethical appeal of celebrity
culture to the affective arguments of ad campaigns, popular texts use
rhetorical strategies to construct categories of identity and define
standards of conformity that help to sustain prevailing norms of race,
class, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. Therefore, understanding the
rhetoric of these cultural discourses not only offers insight into the
communicative relationship between text and reader, but also reveals how
popular texts propagate certain ideological arguments about who/what
that reader should be. This session invites papers that adopt a
rhetorical approach to analyzing the various discourses of pop culture
to consider how identities are rhetorically constructed and/or how
individuals negotiate their responses to these popular forms of
persuasion.

Please email 200-word abstracts by April 15th to Kristen Seas, Purdue
University, kseas_at_purdue.edu.

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Received on Sat Mar 04 2006 - 15:04:09 EST