Letter from the Chair: Exciting News

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to take a moment to write about exciting news that your KUAR exec team has been working hard behind the scenes to make happen. Tonight we officially received approval from Student Senate for funding to bring Dr. Rob Asen (UW-Madison) to visit and speak at KU this coming Spring! Dr. Asen is a well-known public sphere theorist and a full professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Read more about him here: http://commarts.wisc.edu/directory/?person=rbasen) He will be visiting us for a few days and in that time he will visit Dr. Dave Tell & Dr. Frank Farmer's seminar on Counterpublics, do a meet and greet luncheon, and give a lecture on campus. With Dr. Mary Jo Reiff's "Engaging Publics" seminar finishing up next week and Dr. Tell & Dr. Farmer's seminar on "Counterpublics" next semester, we felt this would be a timely and exciting series of events to host for our organization and any student who might be interested on campus!

Beyond the good news that we've received initial funding for his visit, we also now have sparked interest in the members of Student Senate to learn more about KUAR and public sphere theory. We anticipate having both graduate students and undergraduates attend these events, so this will be a great way for us to make some new connections across disciplines with others interested in learning about some of our research.

With January being the 1 year anniversary of starting this organization, I'm happy to say we've already accomplished quite a bit in only one year. Looking forward to Dr. Asen's visit and our first co-taught COMS-ENGL seminar on Counterpublics are definitely two of many highlights I anticipate us seeing in the 2012 year.

As we finish up the semester, we wanted to get together one last time to celebrate everyone's hard work, so please join us for a gathering at Henry's upstairs this Friday, Dec. 2nd at 5:00pm to drink, mingle, and take a break before our final week of classes. I look forward to seeing everyone there and wish you the best of luck going into finals - whether you're writing papers, grading papers, or just trying to save paper, I hope the end of the semester treats you well.

All my best,
Rachel Bloom
KU Ars Rhetorica Chair

Dr. Jay Childers Colloquium

As many of you may our own Dr. Jay Childers is presenting this Wednesday for Colloquium. His lecture is titled “The Fitness of Patriotic, Productive Workers: Defining Citizenship after the McKinley Assassination.”

The presentation will be Wednesday (11/9) at Alderson Auditorium (in the Student Union) at 4pm.

There will also be some social time afterwards with drinks at 5pm at the Bird Dog Cafe (in the Oread). Come to both if you can!

Dr. Childers classes on Pop Culture and Agency have attracted scholars from both rhetorical departments and he will be teaching another class on Democratic Engagement in the spring. This is a great chance to get key insights into his passionate scholarly pursuit.

Hall Center Presents Dr. Dave Tell

Dr. Dave Tell who will be co-teaching a seminar this spring with Dr. Frank Farmer will be presenting a lecture titled "Capote in Kansas: The Making of a Region" at the Hall Center this Friday the 11th at 12:00pm.

If you want to go, you MUST RSVP to hallcenter@ku.edu. The website says the RSVP deadline has passed, but I am told this means they can't provide lunch for you if you RSVP this week but I think you can still come.

Ars Rhetorica Social

Ending a busy week there is an Ars Rhetorica social tonight at 730pm. We're bowling! ... @ Royal Crest Lanes. Come get your bowl and drink on.

Recap: Dr. David Zarefsky Ars Rhetorica Luncheon

The Ars Rhetorica luncheon with RSA President Dr. David Zarefsky of Northwestern Unviersity was a great success. He spoke about the contemporary state of rhetoric and opened up the floor for a Q&A. Dr. Zarefsky’s disciplinary wisdom shined through as he addressed where the discipline is heading, how to excel as a rhetoric graduate student, and even gave specific suggestions for our own RSA Student Chapter Ars Rhetorica.

Dr. Zarefsky held a sense of grounded optimism about the field of Rhetoric throughout his talk. "As humanities continues to take language seriously more and more disciplines have a growing interest in rhetoric,” said Zarefsky. While the job market for rhetoricians may be tight, unlike many areas of the humanities, Dr. Zarefsky believes that the area of rhetoric is expanding.

Commenting on rhetoric as a stabilized discipline Dr. Zarefsky repeatedly emphasized a discipline is pragmatically “created by the people that exist within it.” Thus, rhetoric is both stabilized and expanded based on the production of its scholars. This also means, added Dr. Zarefsky, that rhetoric growth evidences how “it has not allowed itself to be [methodologically] constricted by the university system.”

Practically he encouraged graduate students to dive deep within the “roots” of a focused trajectory. In this way students can get a concrete grasp on phenomena that can lead to an expanded audience of one's rhetorical findings - such as the audience a book provides.

Concerning Ars Rhetorica specifically he encouraged us to continue to “be as active and visible as you can.” “As you grow within KU,” said Dr. Zarefsky, “you’ll also grow in prestige nationally concerning other organizations like RSA.”

The talk was quite an optimistic, yet grounded, look at the rhetorical field. While we may have departmental overlap it is our generation's task to work together. So as KU Ars Rhetorica moves on, lets push to be more visible locally and nationally. Let’s actively participate in the discourse of rhetoric and stay tuned for the specific ways in which we can expand together.

Event! - Lunch w/Dr. David Zarefsky

Hi Everyone!

This is just a reminder that KU Ars Rhetorica has the honor of helping host Dr. David Zarefsky, President of RSA, this Wednesday, October 19th from 12-1:30pm in Bailey Room 409! We will have a pizza lunch and Dr. Zarefsky will give a talk on the current state and future of Rhetorical Studies followed by a Q&A session. This is an amazing opportunity for our KU Rhetoricians to meet Dr. Zarefsky and discuss where our field is going in the future.

If you haven't let us know if you'll be attending, please email Evan at center(at)ku.edu so that we can order the right amount of pizza.

I hope to see you there!

Rachel Bloom
KU Ars Rhetorica Chair

Research Network Forums

Did you want to go to the RSA or CCCC conference this year and are you still looking for a way to present and possibly find funding at KU to travel to them? Luckily, both have Research Network Forums intended for graduate students like us! The deadlines for proposals are coming up, so check them out:

“Gateways to the Future of Research”
RESEARCH NETWORK FORUM AT CCCC
25th Anniversary
March 21st, 2012, St. Louis, Missouri
Proposal deadline: October 31, 2011
HOMEPAGE: http://www.rnfonline.com
Questions? Email Risa P. Gorelick or Gina M. Merys: [email on website]

CFP: Please join us in St. Louis to present a Work-in-Progress presentation or serve as a Discussion Leader (for those who are experienced, established researchers) and/or Editor (for those who edit journals/presses).

The Research Network Forum was founded in 1987 as a pre-convention workshop at CCCC. The RNF is an opportunity for published researchers, new researchers, and graduate students to discuss their current research projects and receive responses from new and senior researchers. The forum is free to CCCC convention participants. You need not be a work-in-progress presenter to attend.

As in past years, the 2012 will feature three plenary addresses focusing on “Gateways to the Future of Research.” This year’s distinguished speakers will be

· Rebecca Moore Howard and Sandra Jamieson, “Take a Deep Breath and Jump: Doing Data-Driven Research When You Aren’t Trained in Data-Driven Methods”
· Charlie Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, “Open Educational Resource (OER) Projects as Alternative Publication Sites for Writing Teachers”
· Rich Haswell, “CompPile, Writing Studies, and Obligatory Misknowledge”

At the subsequent roundtable discussions, Work-in-Progress Presenters discuss their current projects (in an eight-minute presentation) and gain the responses of other researchers, including the Discussion Leaders. Work-in-Progress Presenters are grouped by thematic clusters, in which they will discuss their projects with other researchers and a Discussion Leader who is a senior researcher. Participants also include editors of printed and electronic journals of composition/rhetoric who will discuss publishing opportunities of completed works-in-progress.

Work-in-Progress Presenters should bring three typed questions that they should copy and distribute to participants at their table (15 copies for the two sessions will do). We encourage participants to bring a copy of the journals they edit/publish, any other publications, and announcements, which will be displayed at the RNF meeting.

Electronic proposal forms are available at www.rnfonline.com which will redirect you to our new Google sites webpage where you can click on “submit a proposal” for the roles of Work-in-Progress Presenter, Discussion Leader, and/or Editor. You may appear on the RNF Program in addition to having a speaking role at the Conference on College Composition & Communication. MEET US IN ST. LOUIS!


RSA Research Network: Sharing Work-in-Progress

Call for Submissions

The Research Network will once again be held at the 2012 RSA Conference in Philadelphia. The purpose of the Research Network is to provide newer members of our profession, especially graduate students, with an opportunity to share a work-in-progress paper in a 75-minute group session conducted by a senior scholar in the field. For our 2012 RSA Conference, the senior scholars include:

Ralph Cintrón (University of Illinois-Chicago)
Chris Farris (Indiana University)
Cara Finnegan, (University of Illinois)
Shirley Wilson Logan (University of Maryland)
Carolyn Miller (NC State U)
Roxanne Mountford (U of Kentucky)
Lester Olson (U of Pittsburgh)
Kendall Phillips (Syracuse U)
Krista Ratcliffe (Marquette University)
Jack Selzer (Penn State University)
David Zarefsky (Northwestern University)
Applications. To participate in the Research Network, submit an online application by November 10, 2011. Also feel free to contact Kim with any questions you may have. Her contact information is: kimberly.newman@mu.edu or 414.288.7033

You will be asked to include the following information in your application email:

Your name and contact information
The name of your educational institution
A ranked list of 3 scholars with whom you would like to work
A title of your dissertation chapter or article draft, plus number of pages

You will be asked to submit a 200-word abstract of your chapter or article draft under separate cover. Here's the link to the application: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/input_form/display_form_01_show?include_back_button=true&form_no=12

Acceptances. If accepted, participants will be assigned (in groups of six) to a senior scholar who will lead a sessions on May 26, which is the Saturday morning of the conference. Lunch is included. The senior scholar will contact those accepted for her/his group by early December. At that time, the senior scholar will inform participants of the process and the deadline for sharing drafts among group participants. The senior scholar will also provide further instructions for the session as the conference approaches.

Updates from First Meeting

Thanks to everyone who came to our first meeting of the year! Here are some of the announcements that were made:
Wednesday, October 19th 12-1:30pm, Bailey Hall Room 409: RSA President David Zarefsky will present on the current state and future of Rhetorical Studies, Brown Bag Lunch (possible pizza...tba) and Q&A

October/November TBA: Oral History Service Event with local retirement home community, contact Joy Bancroft at joybancroft@gmail.com if you’re interested in helping out or attending

Summer 2013 RSA Institute will be here at KU. Dave Tell (KU) with Debra Hawhee (Penn State), Michael Bernard-Donals (Wisconsin), and Cara Finnegan (Illinois) are planning the program. After the new year, Dave will be assembling a team of grad students to help with this, so let him know if you’re interested (davetell@ku.edu) and look for more information on it in January.

We also discussed the following topics, so I thought I'd share to see if anyone wants to continue the conversation on here or Facebook: Where do you go to find scholarly opportunities, calls for papers/proposals, and conference information? How do we collaborate on research projects and what can KUAR do to help with that process?

The current list of places we look/subscribe to for Rhetoric-related calls include the following (The first 3 have many more links to references on the actual websites; Comment if you have more to share!):
-http://rhetoric.sdsu.edu/resources/listservs.htm
-http://www.uiowa.edu/commstud/resources/listserv.html
-http://www.kean.edu/~complink/collegecompproflinks.html
-Critnet (specifically suggested to do an email filter for Conferences and calls)
-H-net (Humanities list), H-rhetor, H-digirhet
-RSA Student Blogora (TX)

Have a great week, everyone!
Rachel
KUAR Chair

First Meeting

KU Ars Rhetorica will have our first meeting of the year tomorrow, Tuesday, September 13th at 3:00pm at the Oread restaurant (1st floor). We will talk about upcoming events, proposal deadlines, and other announcements as well as spend some time getting to know each other. Please join us to hear about what's coming up for KUAR and meet new rhetoricians on campus!

If you cannot attend but would like your email address added to our new listserv (this is different from last year, so be sure to let us know if you want to be on our list this year!) please email Rachel at rmbloom@ku.edu which email address you would like added.

We hope to see many of you there and we're looking forward to a great year ahead of us!

KU Ars Rhetorica Social

YOU'RE INVITED to KU Ars Rhetorica's first social of the semester!

Date: Friday, September 2, 2011
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Dempsey's Burger Pub, 623 Vermont Street, Lawrence, KS

Feel free to bring friends and/or significant others!

Contact Rachel at rmbloom@ku.edu with any questions

Colloquium Schedule

There are some phenomenal rhetoric scholars coming to this years Fall Colloquium! Check it out!

It has been a while and most of us are embracing the dog-days-o'-summer in full form. I just wanted to throw out a quick post-to-ponder to keep the rhetoric blood circulating in my nearly atrophied brain.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting the gorgeous Boulder, CO while attending RSA Institute 2011 (yes, the very one that will be bequeathed to us at KU in two short years). The plethora of workshops and seminars were enough to make any nerdy rhetorician salivate with delight. And salivate we did. Specifically I sunk my teeth into a "Rhetoric and Ethnography" workshop that was every bit as delicious as a New York Strip would be to a vegan with a Laquanian lack of animal protein. Yet in the process of developing an argument for rhetoric and ethnography one passage stood with particular aplomb:

"It is not that rhetoric culture could in itself provide the skills to rebuild a house after a flood, assemble arms against another attack, or eradicate the mosquitoes which have brought the disease, but it can move oneself and others to a common understanding and a common policy, which may then lead to house building, arms assembling, or mosquito eradication."

To borrow from Bon Iver's Holocene - "And at once I knew I was not magnificent." There is much to be done. A study of rhetoric for change, the study of discourses for justice, reaches toward that which I desire. It is there, within rhetoric culture, that I primarily find a sense of magnificent significance.

Thus, I realized in a revelatory way that this is why I study rhetoric. So this summer, as we venture into various projects of rhetorical vice, let us strive for magnificence as we proverbially build houses, assemble arms, and above all else eradicate mosquitoes!

English Language Learners/Heritage Language & Composition

The following may be of interest to our Rhet/Comp friends...or not, but at the very least, I was impressed and it made me reflect on the rich (and very messy) process of language learning, culture, and composition in a language not our own.

My brother Ladd composed a short film for his grad-level linguistics class. He interviewed 4 people who originally spoke a language other than English, got an hour and a half of material condensed down to 14 minutes, and ended up with a fascinating look at how languages/cultures influence our thoughts and our identities.

Profiles in Heritage Language

Though I don't know another language (much to my chagrin), it made me reflect on the structures of grammar, vocabulary, and how those things get remixed & mashed up when we try to learn another language. At the risk of sounding Farmer-esque, speaking between two languages is an act of bricolage--and the ways in which these folks did so is truly impressive to me.

Guest Blogger Evan Center on the Magic of EndNote

As I slowly saw off the chains of my self-imposed grad school sentence, I embrace the simple tools that make the arduous less so. Perhaps the most important tool for this task, thus far, has been EndNote. An hour investment in EndNote library tutorials during my first semester at KU paid phenomenal chronological dividends. Yet I notice that for many of my colleagues EndNote is a mythical beast to be conquered in post-comp dissertation purgatory. I also notice that there is a RefWorks contingent that would happily wage RefWars to my blasphemous EndNote praise. Quickly I’d like to define EndNote, challenge the former assertion, and encourage some deliberative discourse for RefWorks.

First things first: What is EndNote and how is it used? EndNote is a magical software tool (free from KU) that acts as an organizing fairy for bibliographical references; a fairy that also formats your in-text citations and references page. First, you build a reference library. You use the “interwebs” to import references automatically (e.g., just click the “import into EndNote function” on Google Scholar) and once you have them you can organize them into specific folders if you’d like (I have one for each class I take and each paper I write). EndNote also works with Microsoft Word. Once you have your reference, with a few clicks, you can add any reference in any format (e.g. MLA, Chicago, APA) and it will format it in your bibliography section automatically.

While EndNote is perfect for a huge project—like a dissertation—it is also perfect to keep track of all your readings during your grad school career. You can attach digital files to any EndNote reference for easy access to your notes and digital .pdf markups. Also, the library will scan in book sections if you give them a few days. Thus, when I find an important book chapter, I request the scanned .pdf so it’s easily on hand. This will also help as you compile your comp’s bib—as you now have everything you have ever read. You can also share your compiled “EndNote reference libraries,” just in case you might be missing something from a past class. Furthermore, if you have any other suggestions for EndNote helps, let us know, and post them below.

Finally, as I preach the gospel of EndNote, I am curious to the competing religious force of RefWorks. If you use it, what do you like about it? If you hate it, why does it suck? Do you know how many more miracles RefWorks has to have attributed to it to achieve magical fairy sainthood? Help us out, pick some reference fights, break your grad school shackles, and wage on friends!

PS – vote for Evan

Guest Blogger Lisa Stockton on feminist rhetorics

Feminism as a “movement” in America is largely played out. The work here is mostly done. Jonah Goldberg Los Angeles Times March 29, 2011

            When I read the opening lines to Jonah Goldberg’s column a few weeks ago, I was incensed by his careless proclamation. Many readers, I am sure, nodded in agreement, as they read his challenge to those who wanted to continue the fight that they should go to Afghanistan where “real” injustices abound. Two things, Mr. Goldberg: many feminists, both men and women, are fighting for the rights of women in Afghanistan already; and no, the feminist work is hardly done here as long as human beings are discriminated against, abused, objectified, colonized and exploited. Mr. Goldberg seems to be buying in to the Second Wave feminist myth--now that some women represented in the workforce are highly educated and earn a decent wage, we can close the chapter on the past decades of spotty progress and focus on more pressing matters for the women in the countries in which the United States has started wars.

            Recently, at the 4C’s in Atlanta, I had the opportunity to expose the “feminist project” I have been

Graduate Student Write-In

With one month left until finals' week here at KU, I'd say a few of us are starting to tackle, or worry about tackling a number of final papers. Luckily, I happened to notice a recent email about a Graduate Write-In today at Watson Library. From 10am-3pm the KU librarians and Writing Center representatives held a write-in on 4th floor Watson. There was coffee (essential, right?), tea, an assortment of pastries, muffins, fruit and more to munch on while we got our "write" on (I know, I know...I do not pride myself in excellent humor).

On the business side of things there were many consultants available during the whole thing to help with writing issues/questions and you could come & go whenever in both quiet and group study areas. The event was intended to help grad students work on whatever writing they had. I actually had a nice mix of productivity and fun since I was accompanied by KUAR members Jennifer, Joy and Kara. We were able to discuss resources and questions, and overall felt it was really helpful to be there together. That's about all I have to say on this but I thought I'd share in case anyone was interested in future events like this (or us forming our own type of "write-in" for Ars members). I thought it was nice to have a change of scenery...helps inspire creativity, collaboration, and community.

Does anyone have good writing tips to share? Do you have a daily or weekly routine that you follow throughout the whole semester? Secret gems you've discovered for research? Do share and look out for an announcement coming soon about another KUAR event at the end of April!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! -RMB

You're Invited to a Community Service Planning Meeting

Hope everyone is well and enjoyed the break!

I wanted to make sure that everybody in KU Ars Rhetorica knows about the community service planning meeting that's currently in the works.  At the last KUAR meeting, we discussed some possible service events.  One event we discussed was hanging out for an afternoon with some kiddos who are on the waiting list for Bigs in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program; another event on the table is an hour or so of conversation with adult English Second Language learners in a program for which KUAR co-chair Rachel Bloom volunteers.

Comparative Rhetoric, or Is My Game Slippin?

Today's question mark is brought to you by comparative rhetoric.

Or, rather, it was brought to me by comparative rhetoric.  And RSQ.  That's not a bad question mark, either.  It's a way of saying, "How did I miss this?"  So I figured I'd ask you smart folks.  Is "comparative rhetoric" something that I should have known about?  I'm feeling a little inadequate as a rhetorician right now...

EVENTS: Next Ars Rhetorica Meeting + Debra Hawhee visit on 28-29 March

From Dr. Tell: "Debbie Hawhee, Professor of Rhet/Comp at Penn State will be on campus March 28 and 29. She will give a talk at 4pm on Tuesday the 29th in the Malott Room of the KS Union. The talk is titled: 'Rhetoric, History, Animality.' Following the talk, there will be an informal reception/happy hour at Dempseys."

Also: Don't forget that the next KUAR meeting will be Thursday 10 Mar @ 4pm in the Walnut Room of the Kansas Union.  Come with ideas about what scholarly, social, and service activities you'd like to see KUAR doing later this semester and the next!

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

Language, Rhetoric, SOTU/POTUS

I'm a rhetorician, no doubt, but I'm also interested in language qua language, not just as it's used for rhetorical purposes. So things like this analysis with NYTimes' On Language columnist Ben Zimmer (rest in peace, William Safire) are particularly interesting to me. You don't even have to watch the video to ponder what commenter #3 says, which is what I want to bring to your attention here anyway: linguists should be linguists, not rhetoricians.

Interesting. I don't know that the two are so easily separated. Perhaps what we ought to be arguing for isn't that one discipline should be in its corner while others with shared interests are in different corners; perhaps the linguists need rhetorical knowledge and awareness and that rhetoricians need to be able to talk about language (if written and oral communication, as opposed to visual, etc. communication, is what they do) with some level of expertise.

Your thots? The comments are open!

Welcome, welcome

So, here's KU Ars Rhetorica. You can call us KUAR or Ars Rhetorica for short.

When Rachel and I sat down last semester to discuss forming an RSA grad student group, we both talked about needing opportunities to do something with our rhetorical interests among our fellow rhetorically-minded grad students. Knowing that interests in rhetoric aren't the exclusive purview of English studies folk, we started thinking of ways to make this an interdisciplinary group. So we invited Kundai to be in on the organizing action, and that's the story of that!

We're still getting things settled and organized ahead of our first meeting. This blog is one of those preparatory things: we'd like to have a common site for posting things of interest to rhetorically-minded grad students (so we can stop cluttering each other's Facebook feeds) and for keeping everyone abreast of goings-on in KUAR. And we're hoping for a lot of goings-on... More about that in the near future.

Ultimately, we're hoping that KUAR will give us all a chance to talk about and do the things we'd like to do as grad students in rhetoric but haven't had the opportunity to (yet). So the group is going to be pretty fluid: it will be whatever you make of it. You're welcome to come help us start that making process!