The 2020 Applied Rhetoric Symposium will be hosted virtually over the course of 2020. Several virtual events will take place over several online formats. View the 2020 CFP here.
The first virtual event of the 2020 Applied Rhetoric Symposium will be a synchronous, Zoom meeting on June 6, 2020 from 1 - 4 p.m. EDT. Register to attend this event.
1:00 - 1:10 - Welcome, Matthew R. Sharp, 2020 Virtual Symposium Chair
1:10 - 1:40 - Stephen A Carradini, Arizona State University, "Extremely Offline: The Responses of the NBA, Blizzard, and Apple to China's Demands for Censorship."
The means and ends of globalization were severely tested in the summer of 2019, as international companies the Chinese government forced three American companies to choose between a commitment to free speech or capitalism. The NBA, Blizzard, and Apple were all embroiled in controversies regarding the Chinese government’s attempts to silence Hong Kong protestors. The companies’ responses demonstrate some different ways companies think about the ethical commitments that American companies have in a globalized world.
1:40 - 2:10 - Victoria Anita Voorhees, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, "Metaphor Theory and Its Impact in the World."
I am exploring how metaphors have real-life consequences in our world today. Much of language is metaphorical in nature, and the rhetoric we employ affects our everyday lives. I analyze how metaphors used when discussing the intersecting issues of human trafficking and immigration have major consequences. Within these two major human rights conversations, I evaluate the metaphors commonly used by politicians, journalists, and policy makers that fundamentally shape society’s view of them and response toward them.
2:10 - 2:20 - Break
2:20 - 3:00 - Break Out Sessions, Applied Rhetoric in a Post-Pandemic (read mid-pandemic) world
3:00 - 3:30 - Namrata Bhadania, Old Dominion University, "Ethos as a Social Act: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Ethos, and Power in Women's Memoir Writing as Depicted in Kassingya and Bashir's Do They Hear You When You Cry?"
I argue that activist style, in author’s hands, is a form of activism, in that it successfully intervenes in the narrative about women’s experiences with Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Circumcision (FC). Through this research I want to find out how the two authors dispel racist anthropology and cultural politics of racism through their activist style evoking ethos, pathos, and logos in the audience.
3:30 - 4:00 - Ellen W. Gorsevski, Bowling Green State University, "Formulaic Rhetorical Agitation: On Rhetorical Activism in Short Forms."
Underexplored in contemporary agitation is doing rhetorical activism by coloring outside the lines of forms ubiquitous in everyday life. Bureaucracies issue forms constantly; forms delimit, circumscribe, and shape contours of our lives at work, in relationships, and in diverse community settings. Forms often empower oppressors while disempowering us: that need not be. This autoethnographically informed research essay explores rhetorical activism deploying forms to ‘talk back’ to oppressions that circulate in the genre of forms themselves.
4:00 - Closing Comments