The Clemson University RSA student chapter invites proposals for the annual Carolina Rhetoric Conference to be held February 9-10, 2018 at Clemson University. Our conference theme is Rhetorics and (Counter)Publics.
This conference asks how rhetorics are employed to participate, engage, and even challenge publics. We are interested in the ways in which counter/publics use rhetorics to enact agendas and facilitate action through collaboration and dissent; included, but not limited to queer/ing publics, disability and difference, digital and material participative spaces, pedagogical applications, and community-based writing.
Questions for consideration and response are:
• How are 21st-Century rhetorics poised to engage public ideas?
• What are the roles of academic instructors in counter/public sphere(s)? What is the relationship between counter/publics and pedagogy? Can a classroom be a counter/public?
• As instructors of writing and rhetoric, how can we use publics and public rhetorics to “move” our students (physically, emotionally, intellectually)?
• Can changes emerging in the digital ecologies and environments be employed to better position counter/publics toward enacted change? Will these technologies expand communicative opportunities that lead to persuasion and action?
• To what extent is the digital realm a public or counter/public? To what extent does social media promote or hinder agency?
• Can the rhetorics of subaltern counter/publics offer to larger dominant publics a strategy for articulating interests and needs of all communities?
• What are some discourses and/or strategies for change or voicing dissent?
• How are counter/publics advantaged or limited as they relate to place and community?
• How can we consider the use of non-traditional rhetorics by counter/publics?
• How do various communities address issues of difference and dissensus?
To view the full CFP, as well as to propose either an individual presentation or a panel, please see our website: http://thirdsophistic.org/crc18/cfp/.
For more information, contact April O’Brien at clemsoncrc2018@gmail.com.