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.