Complete Story
04/22/2015
ECA 2015 Convention - R&PA - Division Events
Dear R&PA friends:
Hope you all are well and ready for a great convention in Philadelphia. Can you believe it's starting? While you start to trickle in and get your programs, please pay attention especially to the excellent set of panels that the R&PA Interest Group is sponsoring this year.
SPECIAL EVENTS:
Thursday 4/23: Special Panel
Public Deliberation, Conflicting Memories, and the President's House in Independence National Historical Park: A Retrospective Round Table Discussion with Advocates and Facilitators
12:30--1:45PM: Reynolds Room
Five figures in the development of the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park come together for the first time since the site’s 2010 opening. They discuss the controversies and compromises involved in creating a memory site that recognizes the executive mansion of George Washington and John Adams and serves as the first federal memorial to enslaved Africans. Moderated by Upon the Ruins of Liberty author Roger Aden, the story of the project’s development.
Saturday 4/25: Spotlight Session
On Deliberation and Democracy: Honoring the Work of James F. Klumpp
8:00--9:15AM: Frampton Room
This special session brings together the ECA community to honor, and recognize the contributions of, distinguished scholar/educator James Klumpp. His research on democratic deliberation speaks directly to the theme and context of ECA 2015. Professional colleagues, including former students, highlight Dr. Klumpp’s contributions – especially to studies of rhetoric, argumentation, and Kenneth Burke. All will be invited to participate in the conversation as we mark Dr. Klumpp’s retirement and hear his insightful reflections on our discipline.
Saturday 4/25: Top Paper Panel!
Top Papers in Rhetoric & Public Address
11:00AM--12:15PM: Ballroom E1
These papers represent the top-ranked competitive essays submitted in the Rhetoric & Public Address Division for the 2015 Convention. Reviewers praised these papers’ theoretical sophistication as well as their thoughtful contextual and historical research. Together, the essays represent the impressive diversity of cutting-edge rhetorical and public address scholarship, united through their striking relevance to the critical study of today’s political culture.
Saturday 4/25: R&PA Business Meeting
12:30--1:45PM: Whitpen Room
Come discuss and celebrate another strong year for our group and make important decisions for its future.
TWO SPECIAL COLLABORATIONS WITH THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF RHETORIC:
Friday 4/24: Competitive Paper Panel
Revisiting and Revising the Ancients: New Pathways in Rhetorical Theory and History
3:30--4:45PM: Shippen Room
This special panel cosponsored by the American Society for the History of Rhetoric Affiliate Organization and the Rhetoric & Public Address Interest Group collects competitive papers that creatively and compellingly bridge the study of ancient rhetorical theories with relevant philosophical and political concerns of today. By revisiting Plato, Cicero, and Quintilian through fresh and innovative readings, panelists will engage the audience with new takes on irony, humor, and no less than the very essence of “being.”
Saturday 4/25: Competitive Paper Panel
Pedagogues, Preachers, and Politickers: The Promises and Pitfalls of Deliberation Through the Lecture Form
12:30--1:45PM: Cook Room
This special collection of competitive papers coalesces around the important rhetorical form of the “lecture” in various political, social, and religious contexts. From Horace Mann’s lecturing on education, to the intersection of scientific and religious arguments in Boston’s famed Pitts-Street Lectures of 1858, and on to Congressman Reifel’s attempts to articulate new cross cultural opportunities for Native Americans, the three essayists consider the very possibilities of democratic deliberation in key American public spaces.
THE REST OF OUR GREAT PANELS:
Thursday 4/23: Competitive Paper Panel
Spiritual and Secular Tensions: Religious Idioms, Rhetoric, and Popular Culture
12:30--1:45PM: Shippen Room
Three competitive papers look at a host of rhetorical contexts populated by Christian narratives, myths, and ideologies. From the use of testimonial forms in evangelical training ministries, to the historical “gospel of work” movement within Gilded Age labor circles, to the jeremiadic sermons of Wheaties boxes, these panelists find inspiration for their rhetorical criticism in surprising places.
Thursday 4/23: Competitive Paper Panel
Emerging and Evolving Notions of American Womanhood in Rhetorical History
2:00--3:15PM: Bromley Room
This competitive paper panel traces significant articulations of American womanhood and gendered citizenship during key moments of national history when such notions were being re-defined and reconstituted, including in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts, 1920s-era post-19th amendment political campaigns, and in 21st century popular culture through the Lean In phenomenon. Panelists will engage in important conversations around the evolution of women’s public deliberation of their own roles, and powerful and problematic interpretations of those roles by others.
Thursday 4/23: Competitive Paper Panel
Popular Culture, Citizenship, and Discourses of Inclusion and Exclusion
3:30--4:45PM: Boardroom
In this dynamic and diverse panel, three competitive papers examine unconventional rhetorical artifacts and find significant tensions in the constitution of modern-day citizenship. According to these panelists, on the pageant stage, in the wrestling ring, and in the pages of National Issues Forum brochures, important rhetors are constructing narratives of who is in “in” and who is “out” through influential definitions of gender, nation, and immigrant.
Friday 4/24: Special Paper Panel
Rhetorical Dimensions of the Anti-LGBTQ Movement: Diverse Oppositional Discourses
8:00--9:15AM: Ballroom E1
This panel examines discourses emanating from organizations and individuals who oppose the contemporary LGBTQ movement. These papers examine the advocacy of NOM’s Brian Brown, gubernatorial responses to the legalization of same-sex marriages, the rhetorical construction of Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, and case law pertaining to anti-LGBTQ speech.
Friday 4/24: Special Paper Panel
Deliberating the American First Lady: Maternal Frame, Rhetorical Distance, and Social Style
9:30--10:45AM: PDRC
The First Lady has been deemed the exemplar of America’s ideal woman, even as she must meet diverse expectations in an undefined role. While the First Lady is an archetype of American femininity, hers is also the place for challenges to women’s place in the political sphere. These panelists build on and extend these concepts, with each paper exploring a distinct aspect of how the first lady role has been historically framed and negotiated.
Friday 4/24: Competitive Paper Panel
Hope Has Changed: New Reflections on Presidential Communication in the Age of Obama
12:30--1:45PM: Frampton
The contested discourses around the fracking of natural gas, the government shutdown of 2013, and the Race to the Top education initiatives are just three of the public challenges President Obama faced in his two terms leading the executive branch. And they provide a launching pad for a discussion in this competitive paper panel on the opportunities and conundrums of the 44th President’s unique rhetorical power.
Friday 4/24: Competitive Paper Panel
News, Memory, and the Nation: New Cases in the Journalistic Coverage and Rhetorical Construction of Public Events
5:00--6:15PM: Ballroom A1
Three diverse competitive papers in Rhetoric & Public Address examine the public consumption of news and its connections to the contested practices of collective memory, whether in the Civil Rights-era South, rural Michigan, or even a democratizing Taiwan. In the process, all three panelists interrogate the ramifications of news frames and ideologies (from both government and media sources) on the production of local, national, and international identities.
Saturday 4/25: Competitive Paper Panel
The Rhetorical Lives of Lyrics and Jokes: When Music and Comedy Challenge Social Convention
2:00--3:15PM: Ballroom E1
A collection of competitive papers argues how societal morés are being creatively critiqued by cultural arbiters like rock lyricists, rap parodists, and stand-up comics in important ways. The three panelists draw on critical tools in Rhetoric & Public Address such as the oppression/liberation dyad, ideographs, and myths to show how social privilege and hegemonic institutions can be challenged by the subversion of particular generic forms.
Please be sure to send any questions or comments my way at barney@richmond.edu. Looking forward to seeing you all in a few short hours!
Tim Barney
