Workshop 19: Histories of Rhetoric Elsewhere and Otherwise

Primarily Synchronous (June 1-4)

Workshop Leaders:

Damián Baca, University of Arizona: damian@arizona.edu
Bernadette Marie Calafell, Gonzaga University: calafell@gonzaga.edu 

What happens to the History of Rhetoric once we refuse the racially coded, pedagogically violent “From-Aristotle-to-the-Present” mythology still dominating the field? What becomes of historical research when White Settlers are no longer the unquestioned foundation for the history and theory of communication? This workshop provides space to imagine Other possibilities, Other histories and futures through decolonial lenses that center the survivors of colonial exploitation, both past and present. Cycles of exploitation may include abuse, bi-/trans-/homophobia, bullying, character assassination, crowdsourced disinformation campaigns and academic mobbing, DARVO (Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender), defamation, editorial misconduct, enabling abuse through indifference and inaction, epistemicide, ethnic identity theft, genocide, racism and racial battle fatigue, retaliation and retribution, sexism, sexual and predatory harassment, slander, toxic masculinities / femininities, white supremacy, and xenophobia. 

Our exploration of decolonial histories requires significant attention to an anti-predatory praxis. This collective labor furthermore necessitates a focus on histories of Other rhetorics that account for and honor embodiment and the memories we carry in our bodies. Workshop participants will work through rhetorics elsewhere and otherwise in order to consider steps toward decolonization that not only free us from a colonialist framing of rhetorical histories, but from predatory harassment and everyday acts of interpersonal violence experienced by Others in Rhetoric, Composition and Communication Studies.

Damián Baca (Ph.D., Syracuse University) is Associate Professor in the Department of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona and faculty with the Bread Loaf School of English in Santa Fe, NM. He is author of Mestiz@ Scripts, Digital Migrations, and the Territories of Writing, lead-editor of Rhetorics of the Americas: 3114 BCE to 2012 CE, and co-editor Landmark Essays on Rhetorics of Difference. His co-edited collection, Rhetorics Elsewhere and Otherwise: Contested Modernities, Decolonial Visions, received the 2020 CCCC Outstanding Book Award.

Bernadette Marie Calafell (Ph.D., University of North Carolina) is Chair and Professor in the Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at Gonzaga University. She is author of Latina/o Communication Studies Theorizing Performance and Monstrosity, Performance, and Race in Contemporary Culture, co-editor with Michelle Holling of Latina/o Discourse in Vernacular Spaces: Somos de Una Voz?, and co-editor with Shinsuke Eguchi of Queer Intercultural Communication: The Intersectional Belongings in and Across Difference. Bernadette is also the Editor-Elect of the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication and Film Review Editor of QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking.