SCoR: Description and purpose

The southern United States, while always a strong region for rhetorical studies, has, in recent years, seen a tremendous influx of rhetorical talent. The Southern Colloquium on Rhetoric was created as an informal forum for rhetorical scholars in the South to gather together periodically for intensive seminars on topics of interest, to have opportunities to get to know some of our many distinguished colleagues from institutions in the region, to provide opportunities for networking and collaborative projects, and to provide opportunities to interact socially with colleagues outside of the usual convention venues. Our half-day gatherings are hosted at schools around the South and are designed so that they can be day trips for many, providing a high-level intellectual experience for a very modest expenditure.

SCoR's first priority is to create an opportunity for faculty to explore literatures and issues in a collaborative setting, but advanced graduate students may be included.

SCoR's informal steering committee includes Barbara Biesecker (U Georgia), Jason Edward Black (U Alabama), David Cheshier (Georgia State), Celeste Condit (U Georgia), James Darsey (Georgia State), Antonio de Velasco (U Memphis), Pat Gehrke (U South Carolina), Brian McGee (College of Charleston), Mary Stuckey (Georgia State), and Marilyn Young (Florida State U, emerita).

In our first two years, we have sponsored seminars on rhetoric and affect (University of Georgia, Feb, 2009), a panel on the rhetoric of economic calamity (Southern States Communication Association, April, 2009), a seminar on rhetoric and psychoanalysis (Georgia State University, July, 2009), a seminar on rhetoric and narcissism (College of Charleston, Sept, 2009), a panel on Ranciere and dissensus (SSCA, April, 2010). More details on some of those events can be found on this site under “Past Seminars.”

SCoR Hompage >

Summer Colloquium at Georgia State, June 24

On the Circulation and Recirculation of Texts

This summer’s SCoR colloquium will be hosted by the Dept of Communication at Georgia State University, 1-5pm, June 24, 2011 in One Park Place. Location details will be posted shortly.
The topic for this summer’s colloquium is the circulation and recirculation of texts and the implications for such circulation and recirculation on our very conception of text.
As presented by the organizer for this colloquium, Mary Stuckey:
The problem of circulation seems to me to have three main components: the problem of theory, the problem of text, and the problem of reception. The text has been reduced to fragments, and the audience is increasingly fragmented, making it difficult to identify a locus for considering reception.

In terms of the text, we can go to the Leff/McGee debate: is there such a thing as text, or is it all about fragments? How do we understand texts when things are now far more fragmented than they were when McGee wrote?

Second, in a related problem, how do we understand the nature of the audience if there isn’t “an audience” or set of audiences? As Biesecker notes, “Studies of dissemination, circulation, and uptake of rhetoric (now broadly defined) inspired largely but not exclusively by Foucault, register a new attentiveness to ‘what man [sic] as received is [actually] exposed to [over space and time], rather than what man [sic] as a source creates.”

So it’s not (only) about the text but about the circulation, recirculation and translation of texts. And it gets even more complicated when we consider that theories about texts and audiences also circulate, disappear and recirculate. It was recently pointed out to me, for instance, that at least some of the ideas we now understand through Foucault were also debated and discussed by Renaissance Humanists.

So on the one hand, this set of issues is clearly not new; theories and texts always circulated and were always translated to audiences; classical republican texts were translated into English and circulated during the founding period; 18th and 19th century presidential speeches were written and circulated via newspapers that were read aloud to illiterate audiences, to take just two American examples. But on the other hand, technology has made this infinitely more complicated; there is a difference between a local elite reading a presidential text to the community and the will.

So that’s the set of issues I hope to explore.

Readings:
Leff and McGee debate on circulation of texts and audiences
Lacan, Four Fundamental Concepts*gives us the idea of different sites
of enunciation
Warner, Publics and Counter Publics and Letters of the Republic
Poster, Pedagogy and Bibliography*historical spin

Obama's Budget Speech:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20053885-503544.html
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-04-13/news/29445321_1_bush-era-tax-cuts-gop-plan-trillion-deficit

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/us/politics/14obama-text.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

The colloquium will be followed by a cookout at Mary Stuckey’s. Please RSVP separately for the colloquium and the cookout to Teresa Morales by June 17.

Come join us for an always lively discussion and the company of your rhetorical colleagues from around the South. Consider spending a weekend in Atlanta to enjoy the current exhibits at the High Museum, the Botanical Gardens, the Atlanta History Center, or other events.

Click here for logistical details, including maps, parking, public transit information.

For information on previous SCoR colloquia, including a very successful and stimulating panel at SSCA in Little Rock, look under “Past Events.”

To be added to the e-mail list for SCoR, contact Teresa Morales. If you would like to host a SCoR seminar, contact James Darsey.