Rhetoric and Composition @ WSU

Faculty member Jeff Pruchnic and recent graduate of our PhD program (and current faculty member at Saginaw Valley State University) Kim Lacey’s article “The Future of Forgetting: Rhetoric, Memory, Affect,” is currently available in the latest issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly.

Adjunct faculty and graduate students attending the 2012 Conference on College Composition and Communication are encouraged to apply for one of ten $750 travel grants being provided by Pearson. Full details are available here.

Faculty member Richard Marback guest-edited a recent multimedia issue of the online journal Enculturation in which he and three others created mashups of a film produced in the 1930s by Chevrolet. Full details after the jump. (more…)

The program will be well-represented at the 2011 Conference of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.

•  Three of our graduate students are presenting as part of the panel “Toxic Rhetorics, Environmental Paradoxes, and Animal Prophylaxis.” Jared Grogan will give a talk entitled “Techne Paradoxic: Echo-Techne from Toxic to Paradox”; Whitney Hardin will give a talk entitled “Localized Rhetorics of Resistance”; and Derek Risse will give a talk entitled “Human Discourses: Animal-Prophylaxis in the Detroit Zoo’s Educational Initiatives.”
• Faculty member member will Jeff Pruchnics will also be giving the talk “What is Virtual Life?” as part of the “Cyberbiopolitics” panel.

For the next Rhetoric Reading Group meeting, we’ll be discussing the first half of Carlo Michelstaedter’s Persuasion and Rhetoric. We will start with the first section (“On Persuasion” – pgs. 1-58) for the September meeting, and continue with the second section (“On Rhetoric” – pgs. 59-101) for the October meeting (date TBD). Although used copies of the book are fairly cheap online, it is also available for free as a digital copy through WSU Libraries.

From Yale University Press:

“This translation of Carlo Michelstaedter’s Persuasion and Rhetoric brings the powerful and original work of a seminal cultural figure to English-language readers for the first time. Ostensibly a commentary on Plato’s and Aristotle’s relation to the pre-Socratic philosophers, Michelstaedter’s deeply personal book is an extraordinary rhetorical feat that reflects the author’s struggle to make sense of modern life. This edition includes an introduction discussing his life and work, an extensive bibliography, notes to introduce each chapter, and critical notes illuminating the text.

Within hours of completing Persuasion and Rhetoric, his doctoral thesis, 23-year-old Michelstaedter shot himself to death. The text he left behind has proved to be one of the most trenchant and influential studies in modern rhetoric, a work that develops Nietzschean themes and anticipates the conclusions of, among others, Martin Heidegger. Publication of the book in English is an event of great magnitude for students of Italian philosophy, rhetoric, and literature as well as the culture of Mitteleuropa.”

Time: 3:00PM

Date: Friday, 9/30/2011

Place: Motor City Brewing Works

The final Rhetoric Reading Group Meeting of the summer session will take place from 3-6 PM, Friday August 19, at Mike Ristich’s house. Directions and further details are available via the Wayne State Rhetoric Society Facebook group. Our readings for the meeting will be two essays, Jacques Ranciere’s “Ten Theses on Politics” and Timothy Brennan’s “Running and Dodging: The Rhetoric of Doubleness in Contemporary Theory.”