[Air-L] Deadline Extended: International Rhetoric Workshop (IRW) “Crossing Traditions: Reimagining the Political”

[Erik Bengtson]

I am in the panel of the workshop presented below. There has been an extension of the deadline and I would like to inform about this.

I hope to reach researcher in the borderlands between internet research and the field of rhetorical research. The workshop will include discussions on contemporary political rhetoric, the formation of social movements and the international rhetoric of terror organisations. To understand these areas it is (of course) of key importance to understand the function of internet and social media in relation to these areas . I hope to reach PhD-students and emerging scholars (dissertation no earlier than 2012) that are interested in contributing to this discussion.  

/Erik Bengtson, Uppsala University


CALL FOR PAPERS
UPDATE: Deadline Extended to 15 April 2016
“Crossing Traditions: Reimagining the Political”
International Rhetoric Workshop
Uppsala University, Sweden
17-19 August 2016

The International Rhetoric Workshop (IRW) invites PhD students and emerging scholars to participate in developing the study of political rhetoric and its theoretical traditions. At beautiful Uppsala University, Sweden, we will meet in the last days of summer to advance rhetorical scholarship on “Crossing Traditions: Reimagining the Political”.

In an informal setting with a focus on engaging discussion, developing scholarship, and extending community, IRW welcomes everyone interested in rhetoric’s relation to politics, theory, history, power or its formative concepts to join us. The workshop theme addresses questions of how various traditions of rhetorical theory meet and merge within global rhetorical practices, and how these crossings can change and develop the concept of the political.

Contemporary rhetorical studies include the study and criticism of contemporary persuasive practices, theoretical discussions on the conditions for communal meaning-making, and historical studies of rhetorical practices and rhetorical thinking in different times and places. The emphasis rhetorical studies places on cross-fertilization between these different forms of inquiry opens opportunities to take on the challenges posed by contemporary politics.

 

Suggested themes or questions to be furthered at the workshop:

How to understand geographically structured traditions of rhetorical practices: their local, regional, and national negotiations.
What happens when these traditions crosses boundaries: how they are compared, merged or intersected with other specific practices globally.
How political and rhetorical theories change and merge across academic traditions.
Theoretical or conceptual contributions to the rhetorical conditions of possibility for the political to emerge.
Politics and its relations to established power structures and resistance movements.
How rhetoric’s multifaceted, transnational intellectual history has crossed borders: its ancient heritage, its Arabic-European transformations, its mutation into post-colonial settings across the world and various histories of thought.
How rhetoric’s continuous engagement with political, philosophical, and aesthetic thought is played out in global political settings.
 

Format and participants

The format consists of a three-day workshop at Uppsala. The core activities are breakout sessions in which workshop participants review and discuss work-in-progress of their ongoing research with faculty. In addition, each day will open with a keynote address and conclude with faculty discussion panels on topics relevant to the theme and the participants’ research interests.

IRW will include three keynote addresses from internationally recognized scholars working at the intersection of rhetorical and political thought: Debra Hawhee (Penn State University, USA), Kari Palonen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), and Philippe-Joseph Salazar (University of Cape Town, South Africa).

Papers will be pre-circulated to a small group of about 5-6 workshop participants and one member of the invited faculty and everybody is expected to come with suggestions and offer comments on each other’s work.

IRW will also have panel sessions, led by the invited faculty, on methodological and theoretical topics relating to the theme and participant’s research interests (more on that as soon as we have all applications!). The invited faculty consists of: Mats Rosengren (Uppsala University, Sweden), María Alejandra Vitale (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), Jiyeon Kang (University of Iowa, USA), Jairos Kangira (University of Namibia), Dilip Gaonkar (Northwestern University, USA), Anne Ulrich (University of Tübingen, Germany), Alan Finlayson (University of East Anglia, UK) and our three keynote speakers. They work in the fields of postcolonial intellectual history, securitization, neo-liberal forms of governmentality, the changing forms of protest movements, the challenge of the political to continental thought, and national political rhetoric at the intersection of geopolitical rhetorical practices.

Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words and submitted through the form below. Abstract submission is open to PhD students and emerging scholars who have received their PhD no earlier than January 2012.

 

Deadline for abstract: 15 April 2016. (23.59 GMT)

To submit your abstract, please follow the submission link from the official website: http://www.internationalrhetoric.com

Letters of acceptance will be sent no later than 30 April 2016. Please note that if an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of your work-in-progress should be submitted by 30 June 2016. Final papers should be 3000-6000 words in length, excluding notes and references.  

Registration fee (includes participation in the workshop with pre-circulated paper, one informal dinner, as well as breakfast and lunch for three days): 100 EUR

The Planning Committee understands that the financial burden for attending a workshop can be heavy for young scholars, and we have made every effort to make IRW a low-cost event. It means that besides having a low registration fee, we include most of the food throughout the three days. If you are in need of support to participate in the workshop and cannot acquire this from your home university, please contact the planning committee to discuss options. We are also happy to provide practical suggestions on how to keep the costs down when in Uppsala!

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Erik Bengtson
Doktorand / Ph.D Fellow
Avdelningen för retorik / Section of Rhetoric
Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen / Department of Literature
Uppsala universitet / Uppsala University
Thunbergsvägen 3 P
Box 632, SE-751 26 Uppsala
Sverige / Sweden
erik.bengtson at littvet.uu.se<mailto:erik.bengtson at littvet.uu.se>