2024 Symposium Schedule

Session Schedule

May 31-June 1, 2024

ALL TIMES in Central Daylight Time

Fri. 

8 am 

Welcome

Welcome to the 2024 Symposium of the Applied Rhetoric Collaborative!

Planning Committee:
Matthew R. Sharp, Stephen Carradini, Roxanne Aftanas, Quaid Adams, Jacob Rawlins, Lenny Grant, Jennifer Veltsos, Angie Mallory, and Ed Nagelhout

Fri. 

8:15 am- 9:15 am 

Session 1 - Quick Hits

Through analysis of Chicago news stories, I share how unpermitted work and volunteerism are subversive because they demonstrate migrants’ “rasquache” sensibility or rhetorics that “make do.” I will explain how Chicago migrants’ rasquache rhetorics are motivated by a “sociocultural imperative to . . . make new meaning through whatever available bits and pieces” (Medina-López). Such rhetorics critique the victimization stories that surround Chicago migrants and enable them to tell new stories about themselves outside the reductive asylum system. 
This quick-hit will open space for sharing and advice in supporting internships as an applied rhetorical practice. It will begin with a review of my own work as a faculty internship advisor for an English and Creative Writing department, reconceived as persuasion, rather than just administration or a coordination effort. In particular, I will ask how limited engagement does and does not fulfill our obligations to the interns and their workplace contexts. 

Fri. 

9:15 am- 9:30 am 

Break

Fri.

9:30 am- 10:30 am

Session 2 - Exclusion & Advocacy

One of the most salient questions about the near future landscape for doing rhetoric “out in the world,” involves the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT on a variety of practical rhetorical modes. This paper investigates the possible impact of these tools both on the practice of rhetoric in the world and the preparation of students to do that rhetoric via a classroom study approach. 
In a post-pandemic world filled with corporate handwringing regarding remote work and loud quitting, Lisa Beasley’s satirical TikTok performance as Corporate Erin sheds light on Corporate America’s inflexible, inhumane, and exclusionary practices. In my presentation, I argue that Beasley’s Corporate Erin utilizes epideictic rhetoric in her online performances to bring about positive change through her promotion of workplace inclusivity and flexibility. 

Fri. 

10:30 Am- 10:45 am 

Break

Fri.

10:45 AM-
noon 

Session 3 - Works in Progress A

To explore the limitations and opportunities of technical communication for advocacy, I use the Auschwitz report, or the Vrba-Wetzler report, as a case study. The report was written by two Jewish men who escaped the concentration camp in 1944 and provided an eyewitness report of the atrocities there. Though the report saved thousands of lives, the authors regretted that Allied governments did not take action sooner. This case illustrates the uses of rhetoric and technical communication for social justice.
This presentation will continue an ongoing project from ARC by analyzing speech codes from universities whose FIRE rating has changed to a “red light” rating since 2022 through a lens of epideictic rhetoric. I have argued at previous ARC symposia that by (re)producing certain value hierarchies, speech codes create deliberative calls to action that encourage institutional action; therefore, by understanding the ways in which these hierarchies are changing, can we begin to develop an understanding of why those changes are happening and how to reverse that trend?

Fri. 

noon- 12:30 pm 

Break

Fri.

12:30 Pm-
1:30 PM 

Session 4 - Health & Medical Rhetoric

This study highlights the application of rhetorical criticism in analyzing and assessing message consistency and effectiveness within disinformation campaigns. A fantasy theme analysis is applied to a disinformation campaign to offer insights for practitioners and scholars in applied rhetorics and information operations. This case study analyzes artifacts from Operation Denver, a Soviet disinformation campaign asserting U.S. responsibility for the AIDS pandemic, to assess message and campaign consistency and effectiveness.
In this presentation, I share results from a study of community members’ digital labor in creating and maintaining the Minneapolis Vaccine Hunters Facebook group, a space dedicated to sharing information around COVID-19. By sharing themes from participant reflections and interviews, I aim to emphasize how digital labor acts as a valuable rhetorical lens for better understanding the unpaid work of public health communication in digital spaces. 

Fri. 

1:30 pm-  1:45 pm 

Break

Fri.

1:45 pm-
2:45 PM 

Session 5 - Disability & Mental health

This presentation asks how rhetorical principles are shaping ketamine assisted therapy—specifically how they ignore the effects of psychedelics on people of color. Borrowing from Foucault’s notion of “technologies of the self,” the presentation argues that not enough is done to prep patients for ketamine’s unique effects as a dissociative. Additionally, the concepts of “set and setting” are not significantly factored into the complexity of racial identification and psychedelic consumption.
We partnered with a local coalition, Arizona State University’s Accessibility Coalition, to better understand the phenomena of disability etiquette in social and supportive interactions. The study was designed to support the coalition’s development of a digital advocacy plan. First, we describe how we collaborated with the coalition. Then, we report the key themes explored in the interviews and surveys with students with disabilities. Lastly, we describe how these themes were integrated into digital advocacy initiatives.

Fri.

2:45 pm-
3:15 PM 

Day 1 Wrap-Up

A few minutes at the end of each day to draw connections among all that we've learned and discussed.

Led by Lenny Grant

SAT.

8 am-
9 am

Session 6 - Works in Progress B

When reading the built environment as a text, certain design elements appeal to most people (for example, nature/green space), and certain design elements are matters of personal taste (art, fashion). In that way, theories of aesthetics surface the reified ethos represented in architecture and interior design. Rhetorical readings also invite considerations of usability and ergonomics, which lead us to additional elements for evaluative criteria. The presentation will focus on one unique corporate campus, as I describe design decisions that are supported by research and current design thinking, and also raise questions about design decisions that may be less effective at reifying a positive corporate ethos.
This work-in-progress aims to create a digital archive spotlighting the influential role of quilts in shaping public memory. By exploring the rhetorical power of the quilt, I want to inspire contemporary quilters to realize their power as creators of public memory and rhetorical discourse. I’m seeking feedback on how to do this project in a technical sense as well as finding ways to connect with others and make the work relevant for a specific community. 

Sat. 

9:15 am-  9:30 am 

Break

SAT.

9:30 am-
10:30 am 

Session 7 - Works in Progress C

Many veterans cannot embrace the metaphor of “separation.” While they may physically try to take the path ahead, many find the spiritual and psychic ties to the roads behind them compelling. Like the pilgrim in Dante’s Inferno, they benefit from having a guide. My session focuses on strategies gleaned from four NEH-funded grants and five national Veterans in Society (ViS) conferences.
In a state of burnout we created a writing retreat that invites people with raw, lived stories to find community and writing time. Our goal? Create the space and community we need, knowing there must be others like us. We set interaction expectations with Krista Ratcliffe’s concept of understanding as standing under—as a waterfall. The retreats surprised us with participants reporting deep healing from trauma—and we stand amazed at how rhetorical listening heals.

Sat. 

10:30 am-  10:45 am 

Break

SAT.

10:45 am-
11:45 am

Session 8 - Rhetoric in the Classroom

This presentation explores a lesson on “inner rhetorics,” our “deep unspoken stories” (2014, p. 174) and inner dialogues, in the writing classroom. I suggest we understand inner rhetorics as a constellation of our thoughts, underlying storylines, emotions, and attention/awareness. I argue students’ mindful awareness of their inner rhetorics can support their mental health and their ability to practice ethical communication as they foster regular, critical self-awareness of their inner worlds in relation to rhetoric.
Higher education is built with complex networks of boundaries that can be barriers to learning and collaboration. However, those same boundaries can also offer spaces “for understanding and integration” (Wilson & Herndl, 2007). This presentation explores areas in which we can engage in positive rhetorical boundary work: (1) teaching students to balance requirements and learning; (2) navigating the disciplinary divisions within our institutions; and (3) preparing students to cross the boundary between education and careers.

Sat. 

11:45 am-  12:30 pm 

Break

SAT.

12:30 pm-1:30 Pm 

Session 9 - Rhetorical Spaces

The presenter will provide a case study analysis related to application of Kairos considerations within a challenging situation of an accreditation assessment of a local nonprofit affiliate organization and how the local affiliate's leadership responded. Attendees may be able to use it as an example of how power relations within rhetorical settings—especially relative to Kairos-- can affect how productive such interactions can be. 
Waterbot 1.0 is a ChatGPT-powered chatbot that delivers information about Arizona's water situation to the public. Building this chatbot required considering how the indeterminate output of GPT clashed against the need for rhetorical sensitivity regarding the concerns of multiple stakeholders. This presentation will discuss the changes my team and l made to Waterbot's output to produce more effective and sensitive rhetoric, as well as what these changes mean for the future of human-generated and machine-generated public rhetoric (Humans are necessary! Very necessary!). 

Sat. 

1:30 pm- 1:45 pm 

Break

SAT.

1:45 pm-
2:45 pm

Session 10 - Works in Progress D

In Iowa we are struggling to make the case for changing agricultural practices to mitigate the effects of water pollution caused by agricultural practices, since the threat of declining water quality is of critical importance to all of Iowa’s citizens. In an effort to determine how to make progress, this work in progress focuses on the uses of science to either defend or critique conventional agricultural practices in Iowa."
This presentation describes the applied rhetorical thinking that informed the development of a research ethics training program for graduate students in robotics and related academic fields. I share the key theoretical and methodological insights from my experience of mobilizing applied rhetoric to foster a view of research ethics as rhetorical praxis that operates through an iterative argumentation process that has the potential to go beyond dominant narratives of engineering research and its public value. 

Fri.

2:45 pm-
3:15 PM 

Day 2 Wrap-Up

A few minutes at the end of each day to draw connections among all that we've learned and discussed.

Led by Lenny Grant