*Due to unexpected circumstances, the Oregon Rhetoric Conference will be
postponed until October 12-13, 2007. Please look for the CFP early next
year and direct inquiries to Nancy Knowles nknowles_at_eou.edu
<mailto:nknowles_at_eou.edu> or 541-962-3795. We apologize for any
inconvenience. *
* *
*Call for Proposals*
*Oregon**'s 15th Annual Conference on Rhetoric and Composition*
&
*The First Annual Conference on Multiwriting, Alternative
Composition/Rhetoric, and Community Service Learning*

*Friday and Saturday, October 12-13, 2007 (new date)*
Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, Oregon

*Building a Mystery: Rediscovering and Rebuilding a World Across the
Boundaries of Genres, Disciplines, Cultures and Media*

"That, rather, I be introduced to all the
grammars-vehicles-tools-compositional possibilities /now /so that even
as I 'learn to write' I will have before me as many resources as
possible. I'm asking: that all the 'ways' of writing be spread out
before me and that my education be devoted to learning how to use them."

Winston Weathers, in /An Alternate Style: Options in Composition/

"Small chance of success. Certainty of Death. What are we waitin' for?!"

Gimli, the dwarf in /Lord of the Rings/

*Multiple Mystery Keynote and Performance Art*

Co-Chairs: Mark Shadle, Nancy Knowles, and Donald Wolff

The 15th Annual Oregon Conference on Rhetoric and Composition—dedicated
to Winston Weathers, composition explorer—will, at least this year,
co-exist with The First Annual Conference on Multiwriting, Alternative
Composition and Rhetoric, and Community Service. We celebrate the
inclusiveness of syncretism, the alertness to synchronicity, synergy and
serendipity, and the loose talk of persuasion and great conversation as
the either/and consciousness that draws in and transforms the either/or
world of debate and confrontation on campus and in the community.

We invite proposals that refuse to build walls between genres—whether
fiction or non-fiction, literature and writing, or expression and
analysis—disciplines, media and cultures. We believe that the black
sheep on the margins always were the white buffalo! While we want to
celebrate the complexity that a postmodern world allows, we don't
believe it should be a smokescreen for inaction; therefore, we encourage
proposals that might add to our Student Voice Project, which seeks to
gather community service-learning from all over the country. Show us how
the personal has become public, and how you've personalized the public
sphere.

This time the Conference will take place inside the fall colors and
Homecoming events on the campus of Eastern Oregon University. La Grande
is a community of 16,000 people nestled between the Blue and Wallowa
Mountains. Come early and teach our classes! Or stay late and hike the
mountain trails around Wallowa Lake, where Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
lived.

We believe that the wedding between campus and community is social, so
you'll be able to wend your way through the moveable feast of parties at
faculty homes, as well as La Grande's restaurants and pool halls. Join
Mark Shadle in the KEOL radio studio to perform live radio plays or talk
about your fave music. Read your poems in a reading MC'd by Donald
Wolff. Watch Doug Kaigler and Rob Davis' documentary film, /The Hen
Party/, about tough local women who horse-packed the Wallowa Mountains.
Watch EOU alums' movies, including Chris Hatton's dystopia,
/Sammyville/, or Skye Fitzgerald's look at landmine removal in Cambodia
in /The Bombhunters/.

The legendary Jimmy Lloyd Rhea will perform blistering blues, and Matt
Cooper and others will perform jazz. There will be folk music and
dancing if you arrive early. Dozens of Eastern students will exhibit
their projects that mix academic and personal passions in projects that
extend into multiwriting projects in multiple genres, disciplines, media
and cultures. We encourage you to bring your students, as well as your
musical instruments.

Outside the purview of all official organizations, we hope to have
serious academic and social fun. This conference is about rejuvenation,
celebration and determination, in spite of our country that is being—to
use Hegel's melodramatic language—"butchered on the face of History."
Fall asleep to coyotes barking and freight trains whistling in the
distance.

Is it a little hard to get here? You betcha! Like the sleep mattress
ads, we offer rewards for traveling off the beaten track. In the
tradition of the Geico ad, "any caveman can do it!" Savy travelers like
Andrea Lunsford, Susan Griffin and David Antin have made it, so you can,
too! Fly into Pendleton, Boise or Portland. Rent a car and explore, or
we may be able to shuttle you. As we say on The Ranch (EOU), "Cowboy
up!" And spread the word: if we fill the Grande Ronde Valley with
educators, we might create a Harmonic(a) Convergence that would zap new
age Republican thinking and increase the number of students going to
college in our region (1 in 8!).

*Guidelines: *

Sure you can send us proposals for forms like papers, panels and
roundtables, but these are samples, not models. Maybe you'll want to
resist traditional writing like Derek Owens and start a Speaker's Corner
like Hyde Park in London in the middle of campus, or create a
"happening" like Geoff Sirc (as long as you don't set off our classroom
sprinklers). Perhaps you'll bring one of your children you taught to
write, like Tom Romano, or perform /Beowulf/ on your guitar, like Bill
Johnson, or your banjo like Rick Leahy. Anything you believe is
important, including issues in the evolving fields of language,
literacy, composition, rhetoric and beyond are welcome, including
utopian dreams for the University of the 21st Century.

*Proposal Requirements: *
* *
Each proposal is judged incredibly ethically with our machine, the EOU
Infundabulator 2007!

Be sure to include:

Title of paper/presentation
200-word abstract of each speaker's presentation
50-word summary of each presentaion (focus, purpose and goals of session)
Name of authors/presenters
Snailmail, email addresses and phone numbers of presenters
Institutional affiliation and title of position of presenters
Audio-visual/computer equipment requirements

Submission Deadline: June 1, 2007

Send it to:

Nancy Knowles
Loso Hall
Eastern Oregon University
1 Univ. Blvd.
La Grande, OR
97850-2899

Questions?:
Phone: (541) 962-3795
Email: nknowles_at_eou.edu

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Received on Mon Oct 09 2006 - 10:56:52 EDT