As we once again prepare for the 3rd Biennial International Rhetoric Workshop (IRW), we warmly invite international PhD students and emerging scholars to come together and consider the myriad ways that our contemporary and established traditions of rhetorical theory and criticism inform global flows of meaning-making.

For 2021, we have conscientiously chosen to hold the 2021 workshop in San Luis Potosí, Mexico at El Colegio de San Luis (also referred to as COLSAN), in order to gather academics, scholars, and activists who are thinking about language and communication as we stay critical of its limits and consequences. In alignment with this purpose, the working languages in 2021 will be English and Spanish with the aid of translation software and technology.

The Workshop Experience
The 2021 IRW planning committee has brought together diverse experiences attending international conferences to design a workshop format that can better take advantage of our short time together. The workshop session will be composed of two separate phases: First, an online workshop meeting in June 2021, followed by workshop meetings to be held at the conference location. This hybrid format will allow participants to become familiar with the projects of their peers, and get advice ahead of the in-person workshop sessions to better their research.

Online
During the online workshop, participants will briefly present the unfinished project they wish to workshop to their group, and share the direction in which they wish to develop their project.

The IRW planning committee will create workshop groups based on topic, and will suggest the date for the first meeting, but will encourage the individual workshop groups to schedule meeting times that best suit their members. The aim of this meeting is 1) to get to know each other’s fields of interest, 2) share the first impressions of someone’s work, and 3) to give each other first comments and advice for the future work. Participants will then be encouraged to continue developing their work before the in person meetings in Mexico.

In San Luis Potosí
During the in person workshop in September, participants will meet in-person with their workshop groups. Participants who attended the first phase of the workshop but are unable to travel to Mexico in September can participate online. The workshop groups will meet for three separate sessions to continue developing their work, reflect on how their projects have changed since the first meeting online, and discuss practical advice on presenting and publishing their work. The IRW planning committee will provide the workshop groups with suggested guidelines and discussion topics, but the workshop groups will be able to decide what kind of work is most beneficial to their group.

Along with the workshop sessions, the IRW planning committee is preparing additional programming for our time in Mexico. Day to day programming will include keynote speakers, topical roundtable sessions for which the participants will self-select, and excursions to museums and historical sites near San Luis Potosí.


Suggested topics
Proposals that broadly speak to the conference theme are encouraged but certainly not required. We encourage a wide range of topics and approaches, as we believe that this can and will enhance the discussion and workshop experience.

Interdisciplinarity
Rhetorical theory
Transnational rhetoric
Rhetorical history
International rhetorics
Rhetorics of translation
Rhetoric and the academic job market

How can rhetorical studies contribute to the theoretical, critical, and conceptual practice of rhetoric in different communities? What are potential outcomes?

What rhetorical practices and processes confront, complicate, or help to sustain democratic cultures within an increasingly globalized world?

What nascent identity-positions emerge from transnational flows of bodies, beliefs, and communication practices as they move across borders and boundaries?

How does rhetoric’s transnational intellectual history cross borders?

How can the work of translation contribute to the study of rhetoric across national borders?

How are ideas of race, ethnicity, and gender rhetorically deployed as a political means to securing hegemonic conditions or undermining democratic processes?

How do colonial legacies influence or complicate rhetorical conceptions of global citizenship and the idea of a global community? How does language supremacy structure our everyday lives directly and indirectly?

How do LGBTQ activists’ rhetorical practices centered on queer worldmaking circulates or is contested in an increasingly globalized world?

Applicants who were accepted for the cancelled 2020 workshop will be given special consideration when applying to the 2021 workshop.

The incalculable nature of the COVID-19 pandemic obliges us to remain cautious. The IRW 2021 is designed so that a diverse group of international scholars can participate regardless of their ability to travel to Mexico in person. In the event that a critical mass of participants cannot attend the event, or the event is deemed unsafe by COLSAN, we are prepared to transition the entirety of the workshop online.

Registration fees will be adjusted to reflect the nature of the final event. Despite this, we remain optimistic and encourage you to submit your papers. We look forward to welcoming you to San Luis Potosí next September.