Update on Conference Submissions

Submissions for the Minneapolis Convention closed on Friday, and we have had a busy weekend sorting out the proposals and sending them to reviewers.  All evidence indicates that we will have another well attended and interesting meeting this May.  Here are some highlights: 

• Over 850 proposals were submitted.
• They have been sent out to 68 reviewers, with each proposal being evaluated by two reviewers.
• We intend to announce the results of the selection process before Thanksgiving.
• The American Society for the History of Rhetoric has become an affiliate organization and will hold a pre-conference on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning prior to the opening of the Convention at noon on Friday.
• Cheryl Geisler and Krista Ratcliffe are organizing a retreat for mid-career scholars, and they will have pre-conference sessions on Thursday and Friday morning.
• Ralph Cintron and David Joliffe are organizing a special program to train secondary educators to teach rhetoric. Their program will include pre-conference sessions and a general session that will report their activities.
• The American Society for Rhetoric and Technology (ARST) is considering affiliate status and may sponsor a Friday morning pre-conference event.
• An unusually high number of people have applied for the ISHR/RSA seminar on epideictic rhetoric headed by Professor Laurent Pernot of the University of Strasbourg.
• Professor Pernot will also present a lecture on epideictic.
• Jack Selzer, our current president, has agreed to be the featured speaker at our Saturday luncheon.
• Other featured speakers will be announced soon.
• Rene de los Santos of De Paul University has organized two special panels on Latin American rhetoric.
• Rudong Chen of Peking University is planning a special program on "New Developments in Asian Rhetoric" that will involve representatives from Korea and Japan as well as China.
• Supersessions now being planned include programs on Rhetoric and American Pragmatism, Rhetoric and Memory Studies, Rhetoric and Public Deliberation, Rhetoric and Modernism, Rhetoric and Civic Virtue, and several others. We will offer more information about the Supersessions later this year
• We had far more applicants for the Research Network than available slots. We have reserved places for the first sixty-six applicants and are working to enlarge the Network to include all those who have applied. Unfortunately, we cannot accept any application made after Sept. 22. 

All told, we are off to a wonderful start and expect to have an exciting Convention this spring. See you in Minneapolis!