The Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) is an academic organization for the study of rhetoric.
The Society's constitution calls for it to research rhetoric in all relevant fields of study, identify new areas of study, encourage experimentation in teaching rhetoric, facilitate professional cooperation and to sponsor the publication of such materials dealing with rhetoric." [1] [2] The Society is composed of scholars from various disciplines who study rhetoric's history, theory, public practice, and pedagogical methods. [3]
The RSA was established in 1968, by directors that included Edward P. J. Corbett, Wayne C. Booth and Richard Hughes, introducing innovative programs and courses in rhetoric. [4]
In 2008, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) accepted the Rhetoric Society of America as its 70th member learned society. The learned societies of ACLS are national or international organizations in the humanities and related social sciences, accepted on the basis of their "substantial, distinctive, and distinguished contribution" to humanistic scholarship. [5]
In her book Authoring a Discipline: Scholarly Journals and the Post-World War II Emergence of Rhetoric and Composition, Maureen Daly Goggin writes that:
Much like RTE [Rhetorical Task Examination], the RSQ [Rhetoric Society Quarterly] helped to train those new to rhetoric in the kinds of research traditions that offered a currency and purchasing power to raise the professional and disciplinary status of the field. In the process, it helped to establish a social network of scholars, thus strengthening the disciplinary fabric of the field. In other words, like the promoters of the RTE, the members of the RSA and its journal provided both an institutional forum and intellectual traditions that had the potential to galvanize the emerging discipline of rhetoric and composition within departments of English. [6]
The Rhetoric Society Quarterly is the organization's official journal. Published four times a year, it features original articles on all areas of rhetorical studies, intended for an interdisciplinary audience of scholars and students who work in communication studies, English studies, philosophy, politics and other fields. It awards its Charles Kneupper Award for the best article of the year. [7] An associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, Kneupper organized the society's national conferences until his death in 1989. [8]
The Society also operates the Blogora, a blog for "connecting rhetoric, rhetorical methods and theories, and rhetoricians with public life," hosted by the University of Texas at Austin.
Its current president is Vanessa Beasley, President of Trinity University. Past presidents include Michelle Ballif (2020-2022), Gerald A. Hauser (2002–2003), Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Patricia Bizzell (2004–2005), Professor of English and Chairperson of the English Department at the College of the Holy Cross, [3] and David Zarefsky (2006–2007), Owen L. Coon Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. [9]
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic, is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law, for passage of proposals in the assembly, or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies, he calls it "a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics". Rhetoric typically provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric or phases of developing a persuasive speech were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.
Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in different cultures. Communication is commonly defined as giving, receiving or exchanging ideas, information, signals or messages through appropriate media, enabling individuals or groups to persuade, to seek information, to give information or to express emotions effectively. Communication studies is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge that encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation at a level of individual agency and interaction to social and cultural communication systems at a macro level.
Edward P.J. Corbett was an American rhetorician, educator, and scholarly author. Corbett chaired the 1970 Conference on College Composition and Communication, and was chair of the organization and a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Executive Committee in 1971. He was also chair of the Rhetoric Society of America from 1973 to 1977. From 1974 to 1979, he was editor of the journal College Composition and Communication. He is known for promoting classical rhetoric among composition scholars and teachers.
Victor J. Vitanza is a Professor of English at Clemson University. He is the former Director of the interdisciplinary-transdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design, which is situated in the College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities.
Rhetoric of science is a body of scholarly literature exploring the notion that the practice of science is a rhetorical activity. It emerged following a number of similarly-oriented disciplines during the late 20th century, including the disciplines of sociology of scientific knowledge, history of science, and philosophy of science, but it is practiced most fully by rhetoricians in departments of English, speech, and communication.
Robert L. Scott was an American scholar influential in the study of rhetorical theory, criticism of public address, debate, and communication research and practice. He was professor emeritus in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of five books, numerous articles in speech, communications, philosophy, and rhetoric journals, and contributed many book chapters. His article "On Viewing Rhetoric As Epistemic", is considered one of the most important academic articles written in rhetorical studies in the past century.
Composition studies is the professional field of writing, research, and instruction, focusing especially on writing at the college level in the United States.
Patricia Bizzell is a professor of English, emerita, and former Chairperson of the English Department at the College of the Holy Cross, United States, where she taught from 1978 to 2019. She founded and directed the Writer's Workshop, a peer tutoring facility, and a writing-across-the-curriculum program. She directed the College Honors and English Honors programs and taught first-year composition, rhetoric and public speaking, nineteenth-century American literature, and women's literature. A scholar and writer, Bizzell has authored or co-authored half a dozen books, written dozens of articles and book chapters, composed more than a dozen book reviews and review essays, and presented a large number of papers at academic conferences. Bizzell is the 2008 winner of the CCCC Exemplar Award, and former president of Rhetoric Society of America.
James A. Berlin was an American scholar, professor, writer, and theorist in the field of composition studies, known for his scholarship on the history of rhetoric and composition theory.
First-year composition is an introductory core curriculum writing course in US colleges and universities. This course focuses on improving students' abilities to write in a university setting and introduces students to writing practices in the disciplines and professions. These courses are traditionally required of incoming students, thus the previous name, "Freshman Composition." Scholars working within the field of composition studies often have teaching first-year composition (FYC) courses as the practical focus of their scholarly work.
Feminist theory in composition studies examines how gender, language, and cultural studies affect the teaching and practice of writing. It challenges the traditional assumptions and methods of composition studies and proposes alternative approaches that are informed by feminist perspectives. Feminist theory in composition studies covers a range of topics, such as the history and development of women’s writing, the role of gender in rhetorical situations, the representation and identity of writers, and the pedagogical implications of feminist theory for writing instruction. Feminist theory in composition studies also explores how writing can be used as a tool for empowerment, resistance, and social change. Feminist theory in composition studies emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a response to the male-dominated field of composition and rhetoric. It has been influenced by various feminist movements and disciplines, such as second-wave feminism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, and queer theory. Feminist theory in composition studies has contributed to the revision of traditional rhetorical concepts, the recognition of diverse voices and genres, the promotion of collaborative and ethical communication, and the integration of personal and political issues in writing.
English studies is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which is a distinct discipline. An expert on English studies can be called an Anglicist. The discipline involves the study and exploration of texts created in English literature. English studies include: the study of literature, the majority of which comes from Britain, the United States, and Ireland ; English composition, including writing essays, short stories, and poetry; English language arts, including the study of grammar, usage, and style; and English sociolinguistics, including discourse analysis of written and spoken texts in the English language, the history of the English language, English language learning and teaching, and the study of World of English. English linguistics is usually treated as a distinct discipline, taught in a department of linguistics.
Charles Bazerman is an American educator and scholar. He was born and raised in New York. He has contributed significantly to the establishment of writing as a research field, as evidenced by the collection of essays written by international scholars in Writing as A Human Activity: Implications and Applications of the Work of Charles Bazerman. Best known for his work on genre studies and the rhetoric of science, he is a Professor of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also served as Chair of the Program in Education for eight years. He served as Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, delivering the 2009 CCCC Chair's Address, "The Wonders of Writing," in San Francisco, California. He is the author of over 18 books, including Shaping Written Knowledge, Constructing Experiences, The Languages of Edison’s Light, A Theory of Literate Action, and a Rhetoric of Literate Action. He also edited over 20 volumes, including Textual Dynamics of the Profession, Writing Selves/Writing Societies, What Writing Does and How it Does It, as well as the Handbook of Research on Writing and the two series Rhetoric, Knowledge and Society and Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition. He also wrote textbooks supporting the integration of reading and writing that have appeared in over 30 editions and versions including The informed writer: Using sources in the disciplines, The Informed Reader, and the English Skills Handbook.
Jimmie Wayne Corder was a scholar of rhetoric.
Theories of rhetoric and composition pedagogy encompass a wide range of interdisciplinary fields centered on the instruction of writing. Noteworthy to the discipline is the influence of classical Ancient Greece and its treatment of rhetoric as a persuasive tool. Derived from the Greek work for public speaking, rhetoric's original concern dealt primarily with the spoken word. In the treatise Rhetoric, Aristotle identifies five Canons of the field of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Since its inception in the spoken word, theories of rhetoric and composition have focused primarily on writing
Cheryl Glenn is a scholar and teacher of rhetoric and writing. She is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies Director at Pennsylvania State University.
Anthony Edward Schiappa, Jr. is an American scholar of communication and rhetoric, currently Professor of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds the John E. Burchard Chair of Humanities; from 2013 to 2019, he also served as the program's Head. Previously, he spent seventeen years in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, the last seven of which he served as chair. He is the author of eight books and numerous articles that have appeared in classics, communication, English/Composition, philosophy, psychology, and law journals.
Feminist rhetoric emphasizes the narratives of all demographics, including women and other marginalized groups, into the consideration or practice of rhetoric. Feminist rhetoric does not focus exclusively on the rhetoric of women or feminists, but instead prioritizes the feminist principles of inclusivity, community, and equality over the classic, patriarchal model of persuasion that ultimately separates people from their own experience. Seen as the act of producing or the study of feminist discourses, feminist rhetoric emphasizes and supports the lived experiences and histories of all human beings in all manner of experiences. It also redefines traditional delivery sites to include non-traditional locations such as demonstrations, letter writing, and digital processes, and alternative practices such as rhetorical listening and productive silence. According to author and rhetorical feminist Cheryl Glenn in her book Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope (2018), "rhetorical feminism is a set of tactics that multiplies rhetorical opportunities in terms of who counts as a rhetor, who can inhabit an audience, and what those audiences can do." Rhetorical feminism is a strategy that counters traditional forms of rhetoric, favoring dialogue over monologue and seeking to redefine the way audiences view rhetorical appeals.
Janice M. Lauer Rice was an American scholar of composition, rhetoric, and linguistics. She was a founding member of the Rhetoric Society of America. She founded one of the first doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition at Purdue University in 1980. The Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition from Parlor Press is named in her honor, as well as the Rhetoric Society of America's Janice Lauer Fund for Graduate Student Support and the Purdue Foundation Janice M. Lauer Dissertation Award.
Carolyn Rae Miller is SAS Institute Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Technical Communication Emerita at North Carolina State University. In 2006 she won the Rigo Award for Lifetime Achievement in Communication Design from the ACM-SIGDOC and in 2016 the Cheryl Geisler Award for Outstanding Mentor, the Rhetoric Society of America. She is a Fellow of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (1995) and of the Rhetoric Society of America (2010). Her “groundbreaking and influential article” on “Genre as Social Action” is foundational for Rhetorical Genre Studies. Three of her articles have been identified as essential works in Technical Communication.