RSA Awards Announcement

Dear Friends,

RSA16 in Atlanta will be an opportunity to see old friends and colleagues, to talk about new ideas, and to share works in progress. It will also be an opportunity to celebrate the continuing strength and growth in rhetorical studies. As part of its broad mission to encourage and stimulate advances in the study and teaching of rhetoric, RSA bestows a number of awards to individuals and groups, listed below, who have achieved excellence in their efforts.

I do want to take a moment to publicly thank the remarkable individuals who worked on our numerous awards committees. Under the excellent leadership of Shirley Logan, these committees have done great service to our Society. Those serving on Awards committees for this cycle were: Paul Achter, Heather Adams, Fred Antczak, Jeff Bennett, Bonnie Dow, Tasha Dubriwny, Tom Dunn, Jessica Enoch, Joshua Gunn, Jeanne Fahnestock, Sarah Frank, Cheryl Geisler, Laurie Gries, Johanna Hartelius, David Kaufer, Lucy Knight, Katie Lind, Jennifer Merceica, Kristy Maddux, Glen McClish, Peter Mortensen, Susan Owen, Catherine Palczewski, Erin Rand, Angela Ray, Henrietta Rix Wood, Jackie Royster, Joe Sery, Brenda Stillion Southard, Bradford Vivian, Jeff Walker, Art Walzer, Amy Wan, Isaac West, Scott Wible, Kirt Wilson, Jaime Wright, and Susan Zaeske.

I should also acknowledge the many individuals who were nominated for our awards. The Awards Committee had a very difficult set of decisions based on the large number of high quality submissions and nominations.

At RSA16, we’ll have a chance to celebrate these winners and all the great work produced by our members over the past two years. You can join me in applauding all these successes during our awards reception, which will be held Sunday (May 29) at 5:15pm in the Hilton Grand Ballroom West.

2015-2016 RSA Awards

2016 Gerard A. Hauser Scholarship

Dan Ehrenfeld - University of Massachusetts at Amherst           
“The Circulation of Rhetoric and the Question of Change: Networks, Systems, and Ecologies on an Historical Timescale”

Matthew Houdek - University of Iowa
“The Rhetorical Force of ‘Global Archival Memory:’ (Re)Situating Archives Along the Global Memoryscape”

Marnie Ritchie - University of Texas at Austin 
“Cliché Clusters: Melodrama and the Rhetoric of 9/11 Refrains”

Marissa Lowe Wallace - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign     
“Evangelizing the Individual: How ‘Social Concern’ Debate Defined Evangelicalism”                 

Charles Kneupper Award      

2015    Pamela VanHaitsma – Old Dominion University
“Queering the Language of the Heart: Romantic Letters, Genre Instruction, and Rhetorical Practice”

2016    Timothy R. Dougherty – West Chester University
“Lost in TransNation: The Limits to Constitutive Nationalism in the Fenian Movement”               

RSA Dissertation Award       

2015    Heidi Morse - University of California at Santa Cruz
"Minding ‘Our Cicero’: Nineteenth Century African American Women’s Rhetoric and the Classical Tradition"
Advisor: Kirsten Silva Grueza          

2016    Chris Ingraham – University of Colorado at Boulder      
“Affective Ecologies: The Cultural Public Sphere in a Digital World”
Advisor: Gerard A. Hauser                                            

RSA Book Award      

2015    Jordynn Jack - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Autism and Gender: From Refrigerator Mothers to Computer Geeks (University of Illinois Press)

 2016    Gregory Clark – Brigham Young University
Civic Jazz: American Music and Kenneth Burke on the Art of Getting Along (University of Chicago Press)

2016 Outstanding RSA Student Chapter Award

University of Nevada at Reno

2016 Fellows' Early Career Award       

Scott Graham - University of Wisconsin Milwaukee     

2016 Cheryl Geisler Award for Outstanding Mentorship             

Carolyn Miller - North Carolina State University 

2016 Yoos Award      

David Blakesley - Clemson University                                             

2016 Fellows

David Blakesley - Clemson University
Lester C. Olson - University of Pittsburgh 
Victor J. Vitanza  - Clemson University