We’re pleased to announce the RhetCanada student paper award winners for 2022. The quality of the graduate and undergraduate presentations this year was outstanding, so congratulations to the winners and thanks to all those who presented!
Michael Purves-Smith Student Paper Award
The winner of the Michael Purves-Smith Student Paper Award for an outstanding paper by a graduate student was Máire Slater, for her paper “The Rhetoric of Reconciliation in the Music of Ubu and the Truth Commission”:
It is with great pleasure that the Student Prize Committee congratulates Máire Slater of the University of Waterloo on winning this year’s Michael Purves-Smith Student Paper Award, for her paper and presentation entitled “The Rhetoric of Reconciliation in the Music of Ubu and the Truth Commission.” The committee was unanimous in its decision, agreeing that Máire’s paper was not only of excellent quality in its written and presented forms, but also applied a very high standard of rhetorical scholarship to the analysis of a significant artefact. The clarity of the integration of musical theory in a manner accessible to non-specialists, and the attentiveness to the rhetorical dimensions of composition and performance were outstanding.
This award is given in honour of the late Michael Purves-Smith, and the Committee also wishes to acknowledge how Michael, with his deep commitment to the rhetorical possibilities of music, would have appreciated Máire’s paper and presentation. Máire’s engaged and nuanced investigation of music as a site of and vehicle for rhetorical action would reassure Michael that RhetCanada continues to attract a breadth of scholarship of the highest calibre.
RhetCanada Undergraduate Paper Award
The winners of the RhetCanada Undergraduate Paper Award are Queenie Chen and Romina Hashemi for their paper “‘im gonna destroy the world before it destroys me’: Rhetoric and Construction Grammar”:
The RhetCanada Student Prize Committee is very pleased to announce that Queenie Chen and Romina Hashemi of the University of Waterloo are the 2022 winners of the RhetCanada Student Paper Award, for their paper “‘im gonna destroy the world before it destroys me’: Rhetoric and Construction Grammar.”
This well-prepared and engagingly presented paper offered a thought-provoking introduction to the role of grammatical structure in the construction and deployment of rhetorical figures. Queenie and Romina were attentive to the needs of an audience whose approach to rhetorical theory and criticism is diverse; they grounded their discussion of construction grammar as an approach and of the rhetorical figures such as chiasmus, antimetalepsis, and mesodiplosis in accessible terms which pointed the audience to exciting new directions for rhetorical inquiry.
We congratulate Queenie and Romina on their fine work and hope they will continue to share their important scholarship with RhetCanada in the future.