Party time

Hi all,

My name is Spencer Harris (we met in name only during the informational meeting) and I am the social chair for the Communication Studies Department. On Friday, we will be going to Dempsey's around 4 to celebrate something (really anything) but namely the middle of the semester. As Ars Rhetorica is about building academic bridges and meeting new people, I thought that I would let you all know so that you may join in the fun! Hope to see you there!

Spence

EVENTS: Dr. Farmer at the Communication Department's Colloquium TOMORROW

Don't forget to go see what promises to be an interesting talk on punk zines, public discourse, and culture by the English department's Dr. Farmer!  The talk starts at 4pm in the Jayhawk room of the Kansas Union.

Events: Rowland Colloquium on Friday

Hey folks, friendly reminder from Communication's Dr. Tell about the latest colloquium (a re-schedule thanks to snowpocalypse):  Dr. Rowland, of the Communication department, will be speaking this Friday at 3pm in the Dole Institute.

Advance early warning: the English department's Dr. Farmer will be giving a talk at 4pm on Wed 23 Feb.  You can find the full colloquium series listing here.  Anyone interested in rhetoric is welcome to come! 

(I'll have to be out of town for this Friday's meeting.  Hope someone posts about it afterward for those of us who have to miss it!)

More on Egypt - digital and feminist rhetorics

Vince contributes the following links on the revolution in Egypt:

A piece in the Kansas City Star from just last weekend that mentions the ways that digital and new media have made it possible for Egyptian-Americans to contribute from afar (Vince mentioned that this is interesting in terms of thinking about agency in a new media world).

Another piece from Democracy Now! that looks at the role of women in the uprising.

Any connections here to what Kundai was writing about in his really excellent commentary on issues related to rhetoric (as a disciplinary field or area of inquiry with all its messy disciplinary boundary issues) and Egypt?

(Not) Speaking of Egypt

As I listened to coverage of events in Cairo (mostly on Democracy Now!--theirs was the best), I heard experts from a variety of fields share their opinions: historians, political scientists, philosophers, comparative literature people etc. Our discipline was conspicuously not represented among the scholarly types media tapped to help breakdown the revolution. MSM would much rather interview a "professional" pundit than bother to engage a academic rhetorician. Nothing new there. A couple of years ago Richard Vatz noted that

The reason that rhetoricians have never preponderantly been the primary sources that media go after is that we are just one of many competitors interpreting reality, and often we are looked at as purveyors of ‘‘mere rhetoric”

Fair enough. After all, our experts don't just rely on MSM to disseminate their opinions on current affairs. That's what blogs are for right? That's what I thought.

Late last week I trolled around the "rhetorical blogosphere" (the RSA Blogora has a decent blogroll) wanting to see

Minutes from the first KUAR meeting on 2/9/11

According our by-laws (which were ratified by KUAR members on 2/9/11), the Secretary/Treasurer is to "take notes of meetings and post the meeting minutes to the chapter blog or distribute them via email to chapter members" (III.b). What follows is an account of the first KUAR meeting held on 2/9/11 in the Kansas Room, of the Kansas Union.

There were around 20 members present.

1. Chair called the meeting to order at 5:17 p.m.
2. Chair introduced herself and encouraged people list their names and email addresses on sign-up sheets that were circulating.
   
3. Co-Chair and Secretary/Treasurer introduced themselves.

Penn State Conference on Rhet-Comp Deadline 15 FEB

Um... Many thanks to Dr. Devitt for noting that the Penn State Conference deadline is, um, almost now. Take a look at the CFP and see what you might get together if you're interested. Non-rhetoric-and-composition folks who study rhetoric might still find the conference topic to be of interest...

That makes me think we need a revolving list of conference proposal deadlines... Maybe in the margins of this blog? What conferences do you go to? Post a website for those conferences, and we'll start a revolving Conference Deadline gadget on the blog.

News of the Weird: Dr. Frankenstein on Trial at MU

I'm a Tiger, and I still get Mizzou emails. Mizzou doesn't indulge quirk very often, but here's a pretty large dose of quirk coming from the Law School:

MU School of Law Puts Dr. Frankenstein on Trial

Why not? Mizzou has a group called the Historical and Theatrical Trial Society (HATTS) that stages trials for people accused of crimes or wrongdoings. With Dr. Frankenstein's trial, they take a look at a literary figure for the first time.

This is interesting to me because

Rhetor v. Rhetorician

I have a question for you, Ars Rhetorica.

Recently, I was talking with someone about the differences between studying rhetoric today versus studying rhetoric in ancient Greece. This person doesn't study rhetoric and was confused about whether I was studying rhetoric to be a good communicator, debater, persuader, etc. I clarified by making the following distinction:

That's the difference between being a rhetor and being a rhetorician. I'm a rhetorician, someone who studies what rhetors do.

Is that

2Cs (Composition Conversations) is starting back up

If you're unfamiliar with Composition Conversations (2Cs, for short), allow me to acquaint you. It's a monthly dinner meeting (more like chat session) among folks with interests in composition studies and composition pedagogy. There's usually a new grad student organizer every year, and this year's organizer, Kendra, just sent out an email about getting it started up again. Here's her email; respond directly to her if you're interested:

Welcome back

What Exactly is the KUAR Blog?

Welcome to all who have recently (and not so recently) discovered our KU Ars Rhetorica Blog! Here you will find updates on meetings, events on campus, and various interests our members are discovering with rhetoric and the world. On the sidebar we have links to our Twitter page, the official RSA page, and other important sites you might be interested in following.

Who writes on the KUAR page? Well, if you become a member of KUAR, you'll automatically be invited to become an author - we're hoping to create a fun, informative, and dynamic web space where we can share

Black lesbian stripper documentary. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

THIS. This, friends, is too cool.

Leilah Wienraub has documented the LA black lesbian strip scene in what appears to be a stunning documentary.

As you can see from the video, it promises to be a classic like "Paris is Burning."

I'm thrilled about

First meeting time and place

Looks like the first meeting of KU Ars Rhetorica will come directly after the next Communications colloquium, which is Wednesday 9 Feb at about 5pmish. Kundai, Rachel, and I discussed whether we wanted to intrude on the Coms students' usual post-colloquium happy hour. But the post-colloquium time seemed best because we're hoping to encourage some of the English folk to come to the colloquium first. The colloquium is in the Mallott Room of the Kansas Union, so we'll stay in the Union for the KUAR meeting (finalized room location yet to be determined since the University is on snow lock-down), and then we'll join the happy hour that's going on at the Oread at about 5:30-5:45 or so.

When we get the room location in the Union for the KUAR meeting finalized, we'll send out an official email with all the details.

So, mark your calendars! Wednesday 9 Feb @ 5ish @ Kansas Union

Communications Spring 2011 Colloquium Series

Yet another example of the need for KU Ars Rhetorica: I'd bet "money" (my money right now is only an abstract concept!) that most of the English grad students have no idea about the Communications Spring 2011 Colloquium Series. But here's the schedule for it, so now you have no excuse, fellow English folk! Our own Dr. Frank Farmer is going to be speaking, which is nice. I've briefly summarized the series below, but click the link above to get time and place details.

Feb 9 -- Dr. Rachel Griffin, U of Southern Illinois (specializations: intercultural communication, critical race theory, gender issues, critical pedagogy)

Feb 23 -- Dr. Frank Farmer

Mar 9 -- Dr. Mary Banwart (political coms) and Dr. Tom Beisecker (legal coms)

Mar 29 -- Dr. Debbie Hawhee, of Penn State (rhetorical studies)

Apr 13 -- Christine E. Crouse-Dick, KU Coms grad student

Rhetoric and Composition research resources at NCSU

The library at North Carolina State University has a very nice resource for rhetoric-and-compositionists (I'm sure that other rhetoric-minded folks would find some useful things here, too!). It's a few pages on their site dedicated to a catalogue of scholarly materials related to rhet-comp. If you click on the links in the left-hand margin, you can see a bibliography of materials specifically related to things like research methods in rhet-comp, scholarly journals in rhet-comp (looking for a good idea about where to send an article you're working on?), and books that are histories of the field of rhet-comp. There's more there, too. Go see for yourself! Does KU have a sub-site like this at the Libraries's website?

NCSU Rhetoric and Composition site

CIFER at Ohio University

Ohio University's English department has this fantastic e-filing-cabinet of teaching materials that graduate student instructors can share with one another. If you're looking for materials from handouts to assignments to in-class writing prompts related to rhetoric, visual rhetoric, computers, composition theory, grammar, or "movement" (?), you should search their files!

CIFER at Ohio University