Gangsters, Murder, and Dr. Dave Tell for Your Listening Pleasure

If you are in for a long (or short) drive for the holidays, I'd highly suggest you check out Dr. Dave Tell's recent feature on NPR!

Click here for the link and as always, you stay classy rhetoricians...

RSA Grant Winner!

This year KU Ars Rhetorica was one of four award winners for the Rhetoric Socieity of America Student Chapter Grant. The announcement is posted below!
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December 05, 2012

RSA is pleased to announce four recipients of the 2012-2013 RSA Graduate Student Special Event Award.

The student chapters receiving funding this year are:

The University of Kansas for the first KU Ars Rhetorica Spring Lecture Series. During this event, the chapter at Kansas will host speakers for colloquium presentations, workshops, and luncheons on various topics of concern to rhetorical studies. They plan to record and podcast the colloquium presentations for other RSA chapters to access and to serve as a preview for the scholarly conversations that will happen in Lawrence at the RSA Institute this summer.

Penn State University for Camp Rhetoric, an annual event during which English and Communication graduate students discuss research, teaching, theory, and professional development. Camp Rhetoric provides opportunities for graduate students in the region to network. In 2013, Camp Rhetoric also plans to live-stream the keynote address and provide podcasts with highlights from the event.

North Carolina State University for the Carolina Rhetoric Conference (CRC), an annual event that connects graduate rhetoricians in various disciplines. The CRC provides graduate students in the region with opportunities to share their research, build a network of rhetoric scholars in the Carolinas, and to receive feedback on presentations before presenting at major national conferences. In 2013, the CRC will continue to expand by including even more graduate programs in the region as well as circulating formal and informal podcasts from the event.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison for a seminar series on “The Wisconsin School of Rhetoric,” a sequence of discussions across campus that seeks to answer questions about what it means to study rhetoric in Wisconsin, a state with a long history of rhetorical excellence. The UW chapter has invited scholars from a variety of disciplinary homes to discuss with chapter members questions of history, disciplinary boundaries, and community engagement. The UW chapter will encourage application of these ideas at a symposium held in March.

Do you do rhetoric and film/media?

--Check out the call from Film and Media Studies. Due December 15. 

How to Avoid a Bonfire of the Humanities

Here is an op-ed from today's WSJ about the importance of the humanities -- especially rhetoric, writing, presentation, persuasion -- in a time of techno-triumphalism. Enjoy. --R. Mckay Stangler

'English majors are exactly the people I'm looking for,' one successful Silicon-Valley entrepreneur recently told me.

By MICHAEL S. MALONE

A half-century ago in his famous "Two Cultures" speech, C.P. Snow defined the growing rift between the world of scientists (including, increasingly, the commercial world) and that of literary intellectuals (including, increasingly, the humanities). It's hard to imagine the sciences and the humanities ever having been united in common cause. But that day may come again soon.

Today, the "two cultures" not only rarely speak to one another, but also increasingly, as their languages and world views diverge, are unable to do so. They seem to interact only when science churns up in its wake some new technological phenomenon—personal computing, the Internet, bioengineering—that revolutionizes society and human interaction and forces the humanities to respond with a whole new set of theories and explanations.

Not surprisingly, as science has grown to dominate modern society, the humanities have withered into increasing irrelevancy. For them to imagine that they have anything approaching the significance or influence of the sciences smacks of a kind of sad, last-ditch desperation. Science merely nods and says, "I see your Jane Austen monographs and deconstructions of 'The Tempest' and raise you stem-cell research and the iPhone"—and then pockets all of the chips on the table.

All of this may seem like a sideshow—in our digital age the humanities will limp along as science consolidates its triumph. There is, after all, a distinct trajectory to industries and disciplines that are about to be annihilated by technology. Typically, those insular worlds operate along with misplaced confidence. They expect an industry evolution; they fail to recognize that they are facing a revolution—and if they don't utterly transform themselves, right now, it will destroy them. But of course, they never do.

I watched this happen in almost every tech industry, and now it is spreading to almost every other industry and profession. Medicine, education, governance, the military and my own profession of journalism. And so I found myself earlier this year talking with the head of the English department where I teach. The department's tenured faculty had been reduced to just a handful of professors, many nearing retirement; the rest of the staff was mostly part-time adjunct lecturers. And the students? Little more than half the number of majors of just a decade earlier. I had seen this before.

I asked him: How bad is it? "It's pretty bad," he said. "And this economy is only making it worse. There are parents now who tell their kids they will only pay tuition for a business, engineering or science degree."

Aversion to risk, lack of research money, dwindling market share, a declining talent pool. That is how mature industries die; perhaps it is the same story with aging fields of thought. But hope for the humanities may be on the horizon, coming from an unlikely source: Silicon Valley.

A few months back I invited a friend to speak in front of my professional writing class. Santosh Jayaram is the quintessential Silicon Valley high-tech entrepreneur: tech-savvy, empirical, ferociously competitive, and a veteran of Google, Twitter and a new start-up, Dabble. Afraid that he would simply run over my writing students, telling them to switch majors before it was too late, I asked him not to crush the kids' hopes any more than they already were.

Santosh said, "Are you kidding? English majors are exactly the people I'm looking for." He explained: Twenty years ago, if you wanted to start a company, you spent a month or so figuring out the product you wanted to build, then devoted the next 10 or 12 months to developing the prototype, tooling up and getting into full production.

These days, he said, everything has been turned upside down. Most products now are virtual, such as iPhone apps. You don't build them so much as construct them from chunks of existing software code—and that work can be contracted out to hungry teams of programmers anywhere in the world, who can do it in a couple of weeks.

But to get to that point, he said, you must spend a year searching for that one undeveloped niche that you can capture. And you must also use that time to find angel or venture investment, establish strategic partners, convince talented people to take the risk and join your firm, explain your product to code writers and designers, and most of all, begin to market to prospective major customers. And you have to do all of that without an actual product.

"And how do you do that?" Santosh said. "You tell stories." Stories, he said, about your product and how it will be used that are so vivid that your potential stakeholders imagine it already exists and is already part of their daily lives. Almost anything you can imagine you can now build, said Santosh, so the battleground in business has shifted from engineering, which everybody can do, to storytelling, for which many fewer people have real talent. "That's why I want to meet your English majors," he said.

Asked once what made his company special, Steve Jobs replied: "It's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough—it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing."

Could the humanities rebuild the shattered bridge between C.P. Snow's "two cultures" and find a place at the heart of the modern world's virtual institutions? We assume that this will be a century of technology. But if the competition in tech moves to this new battlefield, the edge will go to those institutions that can effectively employ imagination, metaphor, and most of all, storytelling. And not just creative writing, but every discipline in the humanities, from the classics to rhetoric to philosophy. Twenty-first-century storytelling: multimedia, mass customizable, portable and scalable, drawing upon the myths and archetypes of the ancient world, on ethics, and upon a deep understanding of human nature and even religious faith.

The demand is there, but the question is whether the traditional humanities can furnish the supply. If they can't or won't, they will continue to wither away. But surely there are risk-takers out there in those English and classics departments, ready to leap on this opportunity. They'd better hurry, because the other culture won't wait.

Mr. Malone is the author of the recently published "The Guardian of All Things: The Epic Story of Human Memory" (St. Martin's Press). This op-ed is based on his speech at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University on Oct. 18.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578048230286503390.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion&_nocache=1351163176875&user=welcome&mg=id-wsj

AMS 998: Intellectuals in Public

AMS 998: Intellectuals in Public

Dr. Ben Chappell in American Studies is teaching an interesting seminar concerning the nature of the PhD and what it means to be a public intellectual. Check it out!

Spring Course Announcement: Rhetoric and the Public Sphere

COMS 930: Rhetoric and the Public Sphere

Spring 2013              Bailey 401      Tuesdays 6 pm to 9 pm

Professor Jay Childers

Historically, the public sphere has been the space outside of the personal realm where members of a community (i.e., the public) come to communicate with one another about shared concerns, form and maintain a collective identity, and engage in the struggle over who gets what, when and how—to borrow Harold Lasswell’s famous definition of politics.  But, who is this public?  Where is this public sphere?  Do different types of public spheres create different modes of communication?  Do different modes of communication create different types of public spheres?  Can different modes of communication and different types of public spheres create different kinds of publics?  These are the questions underlying the study of rhetoric and the public sphere.

As a way to begin answering some of these questions, this seminar will focus on accomplishing two objectives.  First, the course will introduce students to seven key texts in the study of publics and public spheres.  Indeed, the bulk of the course will focus on foundational books by John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, and others.  Second, the course will also explore the many ways in which communication and rhetorical scholars have been working to make sense of the public sphere in recent years.  To do so, the final five weeks of class will be devoted to reading contemporary essays on topics that include deliberative democracy, public modalities, constitutive rhetorics, and counterpublics.  The hope is that students will leave this course with an in-depth understanding of some of the key works on the public sphere and a solid grasp of the contemporary issues that communication and rhetorical scholars continue to grapple with today.

Required Texts:

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958/1998).

John Dewey, The Public & Its Problems (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1927/1954).

Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1962/1991).

Gerard Hauser, Vernacular Voices (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999).

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 2nd ed. (New York: Verso, 1985/2001).

Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Free Press, 1925/1997).

Michael Warner, Publics and Couterpublics (Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books, 2002).

In addition to smaller assignments, the seminar will ultimately require a publishable length essay on a topic related to the study of communication/rhetoric and the public sphere.  If you have any questions, please contact the instructor: jaychilders@ku.edu.

Spring Course Announcement: Foucault Seminar

Graduate Seminar Announcement:

COMS 930: Michel Foucault and Biopolitics

Spring 2013 – Wednesdays 9:00am – 12:00pm – Bailey, Room 401

Professor: Dave Tell

Nearly thirty years after his passing, Michel Foucault remains one of the most-cited intellectuals across the humanities and social sciences. In the past five years a once-overlooked Foucauldian concept has proved particularly fecund: biopolitics. Through the efforts of Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben, Nikolas Rose, and others, biopolitics now sits at the forefront of the Foucauldian imagination. 

This seminar has two primary goals.

1. Introduce students to the work of Michel Foucault. The course is offered as an introduction; no previous engagement with Foucault is required. After beginning with the 1969 Archeology of Knowledge, we will focus on the famous works of the mid-1970s: Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, vol. 1. We will supplement these works with various interviews and essays in which Foucault grapples with the ideas at play in the major works.
2. Introduce biopolitics. Foucault introduced the term in 1976 (in the last chapter of The History of Sexuality) and, in various ways, grappled with it for his remaining eight years. Because the years 1976-1984 constitute a conspicuous gap in Foucault’s major works, we will be forced to trace the development of biopolitics through his lectures and secondary works. From Foucault, we will read Security, Territory, Population (the 1978 lectures) and The Birth of Biopolitics (the 1979 lectures). We will also consider the uptake of biopolitics by Bulter, Agamben, and, perhaps, Rose and Latour. If time allows, we will turn to the final two volumes of Foucault’s History of Sexuality.  

A Preliminary and Tentative List of Texts:

Agamben, Giorgio, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life

Butler, Judith, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence

---. Frames of War: When is Life Grievable

Foucault, Michel, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language

---. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

---. The History of Sexuality, Volume One: An Introduction

---. Security Territory Population: Lectures at the Collège de France

---. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France

---. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France

---. Power/Knowledge: Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977

Latour, Bruno, The Politics of Nature

The seminar will require a paper of publishable length as well as other, smaller writing assignments. Questions? Please ask me: davetell@ku.edu

RSA Institute Deadline

Word!

The deadline is fast approaching for RSA Institute and you should sign up now!

On top of the fact that it'll be held at our very own lovely campus (quite the honor in itself), and that you'll save tons in travel/hotel fees (since you probably already live here), there is a huge added bonus for KU students to sign up--there is a phat discount! On a personal note...I went two summers ago and it was an invaluable experience.

So, yeah, if you get a chance, at LEAST do a workshop.

Check out the message below from the lovely director (our very own Dave Tell).
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Dear KU GRAD STUDENTS,

As you know, KU is hosting the Rhetoric Society of America Institute in the Kansas Union and Oread Hotel June 2-9, 2013. This is good news for all of us for a lot of reasons. I want to bring one reason to your immediate attention.

Although it has not been publically advertised, there is a special rate for KU grad students to attend the Institute. You can attend even if you are serving on the "local team" helping to arrange the conference. You SHOULD take advantage of this. It is the cheapest way to be a part of an RSA Institute.

If you haven't taken the time yet to learn about the Institute, check it out here.

Check out the amazing list of leaders we are bringing in (and the amazing topics we will cover). As you will see, we are bringing over 50 senior scholars to campus from across the country (and the world!). About half of them come from English depts, half from COMS depts.

Finally, apply here.

The application deadline is only days away, so act quickly.

The $ Lowdown: How cheap is it? KU grad students may attend a Seminar for $305, that's $210 off the published non-member price. KU grad students may attend a Workshop for $205, that's $110 off the published non-member price.

Do you have questions? Please ask me!

Dave

KUAR Meeting Minutes, 9/11/12

KU Ars Rhetorica Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

4:00-5:00PM, Bird Dog Bar @ The Oread Hotel

Meeting start: 4:15PM

Our meeting began with KUAR Chair Evan Center, initiating round-table introductions. We were delighted to see new faces from both the COMS and ENGL departments.

We then discussed upcoming conferences and deadlines for submitting to conferences. 4Cs is in March next year, and deadlines have passed, but the NCA and CSCA are upcoming, and everyone still has the opportunity to submit to CSCA seeing as the deadline is within the next couple of weeks.

Also, some of our new members announced CFPs from the Pop Culture association - so members may want to look into that opportunity.

Our yearly goals are many. On the forefront of our list is to host social and scholarly events. Our first social is scheduled for Sept. 28 (event details TBA), and we would love suggestions for scholarly events. Currently, ideas are circulating for an academic paper workshop, involving KUAR members and COMS and ENGL faculty. Other ideas would be gladly accepted, as well.

One of our more pressing goals is to bring a guest speaker or two to campus. We passed around a list of speaker nominations at the meeting. Contact KUAR Co-Chair Jennifer Nish or Treasurer Chelsea Graham if you would like to weigh-in on the vote or if you have a suggestion for a speaker you'd like to see visit KU.

KUAR will be applying for two grants this year to help see some of these plans to fruition.

Further, KUAR would like to plan a service project within the year (more than likely Spring). We had discussed perhaps a collaboration with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, but we are open to suggestions.

KU will be host to the RSI (Rhetoric Society of America Institute) in June 2013, and there will be plenty of opportunity for KUAR to have a presence. We strongly urge all who are interested to apply to be a part of the conference. As the institute is hosted at KU, and KUAR members are all graduate students, we can receive a discount for the conference registration fees. A list of visiting scholars is available online at this address: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/RSA/pt/sp/institute_seminars. Dr. Dave Tell in COMS is the contact for RSI for more information.

KUAR wants to emphasize campus expansion. Rhetoric is a highly interdisciplinary subject, so spreading the word to departments cross campus is essential. We want people to get involved and to know about our group so that we can usher in new event ideas and create opportunities for individual and group involvement.

If anyone has any suggestions for or would like to actively rally for KUAR funding, please contact KUAR Chair Evan Center or Treasurer Chelsea Graham.

Meeting end: 5:00PM

Rhetoric, Space, and Postmodernity

Dr. Dave Tell will be offering a fantastic seminar titled "Rhetoric, Space, and Postmodernity." IMHO it'll be one of the best classes in rhetoric offered during my time at KU. It's not too late to sign up and it should be great for both American Studies, Rhet Comp, and Coms Rhetoric. Here is a brief description:

Briefly stated, this course will focus on what is sometimes called "the spatial turn": the accellerated development of spatial theory in the last 30 years (with a couple exceptions, the last 20 years). This "turn" was, unsurprisingly, born in the spatial disciplines (geography, urban planning, etc) but it has since captured the entirety of the humanities by storm. We are going to focus on this diffusion of spatial theory. In particular, I want to focus on the movements/slippages between spatial theory and two additional modes of theory: postmodern theory and rhetorical theory. Consider the slippage between spatial theory and postmodern theory: is it coincidental that a (critical) geographer (David Harvey) wrote The Condition of Postmodernity. Or is it coincidental that a number of pomo theorists (Latour, Foucault, and Lyotard come to mind) rely heavily on spatial theory? I think not.

Now add a third term: rhetorical theory. Or, if you prefer, communication theory. Spatial theory is far more than a fad in the literature of communication studies (although it is that too). Spatial theorists talk about communication relentlessly (Latour and Castells come to mind). And rhetorical theorists (even Aristotle) constantly resort to spatial theory. I'll argue that the two fields feed on each other symbiotically, that it is virtually impossible to define one without the other: to think rhetorically is to think spatially and vice-versa. 

In any case, I hope to focus this course on the curious overlappings b/t these three modalities of theory: rhetorical theory, spatial theory, and postmodern theory... 

For more email Dave Tell at davetell@ku.edu and/or simply enroll (COMS 930 #26541) and contact him about the readings. 

Seriously, it may be life changing...

-E

Spring Scholarly Event: Robert Asen

KU Ars Rhetorica has collaborated to secure the funding to bring in super-scholar Dr. Robert Asen from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Come join as he will be doing several events:

• 7:00pm on Monday March 5th Dr. Asen will deliver a lecture titled "Notes on the Relationship Between Deliberation and Trust." His lecture will be in 100 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
• 1:00pm on Tuesday March 6th Dr. Asen will join the Rhetoric and Counterpublics class being co-taught by Frank Farmer (Dept. of English) and Dave Tell (Dept. of Communication Studies).
• 4:00pm on Tuesday March 6th Ars Rhetorica will be hosting a happy-hour meet-and-greet with Dr. Asen at The Bird Dog in The Oread. Come grab a drink and talk shop with Dr. Asen about anything and everything!

The full press release is posted here.

Beers, Rhetoric, and our Springtime Meeting!

Hello KU Rhetoricians!

Mark your calendars and join us on Thursday, February 23rd 2:30-3:30pm for our first meeting of the semester at the Oread restaurant (/Bird Dog Bar). We will be discussing Dr. Robert Asen's visit March 5-7th, our upcoming social, the 2013 Summer Institute, and other rhetorically-relevant topics!

We hope to see you then!

Rachel Bloom

KUAR Chair