Rhetoric’s Materiality

Leaders: Greg Dickinson, Colorado State University; Brian Ott, University of Colorado at Denver

Rhetoric’s Materiality 

Greg Dickinson, Colorado State University
Brian Ott, University of Colorado at Denver 

Writing about the material, spatial, and sensory rhetorics of our everyday lives is extraordinarily challenging. As rhetorical critics and theorists, we possess critical tools well-developed for examining symbols and discourse, but less well fitted to the task of engaging how rhetoric’s materiality (its texture, tone, rhythm, smell, concreteness) constitutes the places and performances of everyday life. In this workshop, we will focus on exemplary efforts by rhetorical critics and theorists to engage rhetoric’s sensory materiality and spatiality. We will use these models of rhetorical criticism and theory to guide and inspire the participants’ own writing and teaching about emplaced, embodied rhetorics. The workshop will combine careful reading and discussion of the exemplars with workshoping the participants’ own writing and thinking about rhetoric, materiality, spatiality, and everyday practices.

Questions? Contact Greg Dickinson, Greg.Dickinson@ColoState.edu