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CFC: Rhetorical Landscapes in Canada: Theory, History, and Pedagogy

Editors: Jeanie Wills, John Moffatt, and Corey Owen

  • Extended abstracts Due August 20th, 2018
  • Final Manuscripts Due December 30th, 2018

Canada is host to a diverse rhetorical community meeting annually at RhetCanada. The community is comprised of international scholars from France, Belgium, the UK, and the United States. We meet annually at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences sponsored by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences to exchange ideas, to examine public discourse in Canada and internationally, and to build a diverse and internationally flavoured rhetorical community of engaged and committed scholars.

This proposed volume arises out of the RhetCanada’s 2018 three-day program roundtables where the presenters and audience, at the end of each day, discussed rhetorical theory, history, and pedagogy in a Canadian context. We are compiling a volume of invited essays to put into print the ideas and discussions that we shared during the 2018 conference. The purpose of this project is to trace the scope of the field of rhetoric in Canada. This collection will ask authors to reflect on three themes placed in a Canadian context: rhetorical theory, history, and pedagogy.

Conference presenters from the 2018 RhetCanada are invited to submit manuscripts that examine the following themes:

  • What constitutes Canadian rhetoric?
  • How does Canadian scholarship contribute to national identity and vice versa?
  • What makes Canadian rhetoric distinct from rhetoric in other nations, including the U.S. and Europe?
  • How is a Canadian perspective on rhetorical theory, history, and pedagogy significant to the study of rhetoric in international contexts?
  • Why is (Canadian) rhetoric particularly relevant in the world today?
  • How can we use rhetoric to bridge divides in the so-called “culture wars” that are heating up in Canada and globally?
  • What can rhetoric teach us about public civility?
  • How does rhetoric help us to understand Canadian political situations, local and regional issues?
  • What are the opportunities for rhetorics of race and culture in Canada?
  • How do indigenous rhetorics influence the Canadian scene?
  • How does rhetoric inform Canadian teaching practices?
  • What are Canadian scholars contributing to rhetorical practice and theory?
  • How does rhetoric inform analysis and teaching about traditional media and social media platforms?
  • How do interdisciplinary studies rely on rhetoric?
  • What is Canada’s rhetorical history?
  • What historical artefacts contribute to the development of Canadian rhetorical practices and perspectives?

If you are an international scholar involved with RhetCanada, we ask you to consider a comparative/contrastive examination of Canadian rhetoric:

  • How do you see rhetorical scholarship in Canada as unique?
  • Why are you interested in participating in the conversation about Canadian rhetoric?
  • Does a Canadian context shape practices of rhetorical engagement?

Timeline

  • Extended abstracts of 1500 words plus bibliography are due Monday, August 20th, 2018.
  • You will receive notification with comments and suggestions about your manuscript by the end of September.
  • Final 8,000- 10,000 word Manuscripts are due Dec 30th, 2018.
  • Expected Publication date: Summer 2019.

Requirements

  • Send your extended abstract to Jeanie.wills@usask.ca.
  • Please use CMS style with end notes and references page.
  • Please remove your name or institutional identification so that your abstract can be blind peer reviewed.
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RhetCanada 2018 Graduate Student Prize Winner: Monique Kampherm

Grad students were out in force at this year’s annual RhetCanada meeting at Congress 2018. Members were treated to grad presentations on a wide variety of topics, including papers on the rhetorics of social media rankings, utopias and dystopias, and science advocacy on Reddit. Judging the grad student prize was particularly challenging. Four students qualified after submitting the draft and final versions by the pre-conference deadlines. The entrants were impressive, both in terms of their papers, whose subjects ranged from from Mennonite martyrology to gender-focused media analysis to the recruitment of women in Canadian mining, and in terms of the polish of their presentations, which often showed evidence of students’ previous work as professional communicators.

In the end, judges John Moffat and Bruce Dadey and advisor Tania Smith awarded this year’s prize to Monique Kampherm for her paper “Democratic Prosopopoeia: The Rhetorical Influence of Embodying a Political Statement Online.” Monique’s paper drew from a wide variety of rhetorical critics and adroitly integrated figurative analysis, digital technology studies, and political studies to examine the rhetorical effects of image filter use on social media during the 2015 Canadian election. While her paper drew on a specific case, it also spoke more generally to the rhetorical implications of how text and image are integrated on social media. Congratulations Monique, and we look forward to next year’s crop of grad student presentations in Vancouver!