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This program has already taken place, but the information provided here may still be helpful if you’re considering attending such a program in the future. Programs are often repeated on an annual or semi-annual basis...to learn more about future offerings of this program, please go to the contact section of this Web site. |
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Conference Theme Why "road trips"? The metaphor of the road trip figures in at least two aspects of rhetoric's struggles for place and presence. First, rhetoric has had some difficulty finding a sustainable place for itself in the academy; in public discourse its use is most often pejorative. The stories of rhetoric's multiple meanings, its early associations first with classics and then with public speaking, its goings and comings in English departments, and its many other liaisons are coming to be known in broad stroke. But rhetoric's histories are worth more sustained--and transdisciplinary--study. Second, although rhetoric may have sometimes been outcast, it has been out and about, making intellectual connections particularly across the liberal arts but also in wider curricula, much as a free radical that bonds with whatever it comes into contact. Further, that rhetoric operates outside of institutional formations and sites is obvious but well worth study and comment, particularly with an eye toward collaborative theory-building and praxis. Mapping the paths of rhetoric's relations, not only how it has been contextualized in particular institutions but also how it has been both enriched and limited by intellectual and political maps in progress, is important for remembering and inventing rhetoric not only as disciplinary and transdisciplinary but also as institutional and extra-institutional in the past, the present, and the future. Conference Format The format will offer scholars and teachers interested in the conference theme an unusual opportunity to talk together about work in progress. While featured speakers will stimulate the thinking of the entire group about conference topics, most of the sessions will consist of focused discussions about the conferees' papers. Abstracts of all papers will be made available to participants via this Web site one month before the conference. an outreach program of the College
of the Liberal Arts
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