RSA is proud to announce that Clemson University’s RSA Student Chapter [RCID] is the sole recipient of the 2011-2012 RSA Graduate Student Special Event Award.  They will receive $2450 in support of the Carolina Rhetoric Conference.

The award committee reviewed numerous proposals for interesting and important graduate student events around the country.  However, Clemson’s proposal distinguished itself by demonstrating a wide-reaching opportunity for graduate students of rhetoric. The award committee was particularly impressed by Clemson’s effort to reach across many graduate programs, to create numerous venues for students’ scholarly and professional development, and to utilize digital technologies creatively.

In February 2012, Clemson’s RSA chapter will host the Carolina Rhetoric Conference (CRC), an annual event that brings together graduate students from North and South Carolina. The CRC provides graduate students in the region with opportunities to share their research, build a network of rhetoric scholars in the Carolinas, and to receive feedback on conference presentations before presenting at major national conventions.  The event is alternatively hosted by RSA chapters at NC State, the University of South Carolina, and Clemson.  This year, Clemson plans to expand the conference by inviting graduate students from additional rhetoric programs.  In addition, they plan to include various networking events, a digital showcase, keynote speakers, workshops, and live blogging during the event followed by a series of round-up blogs after the event.

Lind’s dissertation, titled “Schulz’s Religion: Exploring Faith in the Mainstream Media through the Peanuts Franchise” makes use of a transdisciplinary set of mixed-methods to examine the multifaceted Peanuts franchise as a rich case study in the portrayals of religion within the entertainment media.  In his Oral Exam presentation following the exhibit, Lind made the case that overt religion has become a rarity in the American “religio-secular public sphere,” citing legal battles over religion in public schools and media studies data indicating that religious affiliation is often nearly invisible on mainstream broadcast television.  Peanuts, according to Lind, stands out as one unique example of nuanced religious reference in a successful mainstream franchise.  Using historical, rhetorical, and social-scientific methods in his dissertation, Lind will engage questions surrounding religious portrayals in public media by analyzing the nuanced  references to religion across various components of the Peanuts properties – comic strips, animated specials, and product merchandising.

Part of Lind’s dissertation will also include a treatment of the complex theological aspects of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz’s biography.  In 2010, Lind met with Schulz’s widow Jean Schulz (pictured below) who has been graciously supportive of the project. Lind will return to the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, CA, later this year to continue his archival research and to conduct a number of interviews with Schulz’s family and friends.

The Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design (RCID) program at Clemson University invites you to submit your scholarly work for presentation at the 2012 Carolina Rhetoric Conference (CRC).  CRC will be held on Clemson’s campus in South Carolina’s beautiful Upstate region (Clemson, SC) February 17-18, 2012 (Fri-Sat). The submission deadline is December 1st by email: clemsoncrc2012@gmail.com.

CRC began several years ago as a joint graduate student endeavor by rhetoric programs from rotating hosts The University of South Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Clemson University. This year we are excited to broaden our borders under the conference theme, “Embracing Heritage. Expanding Horizons.”  We encourage you to pass this Call for Submissions to other Master’s and Doctoral programs across the Carolina regions (that are involved, either directly or tangentially, in studies related to rhetoric) that may be interested in joining for an intimate and engaging conference. We are also excited to be offering three session types to which you can submit (please only submit one proposal per presenter):

1) Individual Presentation:  “Traditional” panel session format with 3-4 presenters (submitted individually) per panel grouped by thematic similarities, followed by a short Q&A session.  Submissions for Individual Presentations can be traditional scholarly papers and/or can bescholarly multi-media presentations with creator commentary before/during/after.

2) Showcase Session: This session will be similar to a traditional “poster session,” where creators stand alongside their work in an exhibit hall with casual opportunities to chat more personally with fellow scholars about their project. Submitters are encouraged to consider submitting digital/multi-media projects (videos, photo essays, artinstallations, etc.). Traditional “poster” submissions will also be welcomed.

3) Works-In-Progress Roundtable: In these sessions, 3-5 scholars across experience levels will be grouped in order to briefly explain their work to those at the table in order to then receive encouraging and substantive feedback/suggestions from their fellow scholars.

*** Submissions that embrace the conference theme are encouraged, but all submissions will be welcomed for consideration.

HOW-TO-SUBMIT: Submissions should be made via email ( clemsoncrc2012@gmail.com ) by the December 1st deadline.  Please place “CRC Submission” in the Subject line of your email. In the Body of the email, please include the following:

Contact Information: Name, School Affiliation, Degree Level (MA, PhD, Faculty), Email Address, and the Title of your Submission.

Attached to the email, please include a Word document that is free of any immediately identifying information (i.e., no name or school affiliation) but that includes the following:

1) The Title of your Submission

2) A 200-300 word Abstract explaining the thesis and theoretical/methodological support for your project. (Artwork/Audio-Visual-Samples for multi-media/non-text-based submissions will also be accepted, accompanied by short descriptions of the project)

3) Identify which type of session you would like this considered for: Individual Presentation (part of a traditional panel); Showcase (physical and digital media); or Works-In-Progress Roundtable.

4) Indicate whether or not you are willing to have your work considered in an alternate session type than the one you list (i.e., would you be willing to show your Individual Presentation submission as part of the Showcase if requested by the CRC committee?).

5) What, if any, technology needs does your presentation require?

We look forward to an engaging and innovative opportunity to network, test ideas, and share perspectives at the 2012 CRC.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email them to: clemsoncrc2012@gmail.com

Stephen Lind, Conference Chair, CRC 2012
Clemson University
RCID (Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design)
President, S3S (RCID Student Body Organization)

The video below features excerpts from the six seminars that Nicole and Jared attended. Courses included “Art, Community, and Freedom” by Jean-Luc Nancy; “Derrida”: Hospitality and Cosmopolitanism” by Diane Davis; “Justice in Language” by Werner Hamacher; “Lyotard: Hesitating Thought” by Victor J. Vitanza; “Literary Cinema: the Transformation of Thought” by Volker Schlöndorff; and “Deleuze: Science and History” by Manuel DeLanda.

The EGS Experience from Jared on Vimeo.

Favorite Italian Restaurant: The chocolate truffles were to die for.

Jean-Luc Nancy was kind enough to pose for a photo with Nicole.

Manuel DeLanda strikes a playful stance with Jared upon the conclusion of his seminar on Deleuze.

Derrida seminar with Diane Davis and EGS students.

~ RCID ROCKS! ~

Joshua Mitchell Abboud…………………………..Clemson, SC
B.A., Brigham Young University; M.A., University of Arizona
Dissertation: The Ethics of Obstruction
Advisor: Dr. Victor j. Vitanza

Sergio Correia Figueiredo…………………………Riverside, NJ
B.A., Rowan College; M.A., Marshall University
Dissertation: UnComposing (Visual) Rhetoric’s: A (Strange) Comic(s) View of Writing in the Age of New Media
Advisor: Dr. Cynthia Haynes

Alicia Nicole Hatter………………………………….Snellville, GA
B.A., College of Charleston; M.A., Georgia State University
Dissertation: You Belong Here: An “Interpellative” Approach to Usability
Advisor: Dr. Tharon Howard

Josephine Nambuya Walwema……………………Mbale, Uganda
B.A., M.Ed., Makerere University; M.A., University of New Mexico
Dissertation: Tactile Interfaces: Epistemic Techne in Information Design
Advisor: Dr. Steve Katz

–Fall 2010

Bryan Denham, Department of Communication Studies: “Mass Communication and Deviance Amplification: Conceptual Processes.”

Tharon Howard, Department of English: “Who Watches the Watchmen: Evaluating Multimodal Scholarship in the Academy.”

Christina Hung, Department of Art: “Peripatetic Looking: Making the Image and Its Situation.”

Jan Holmevik, Department of English: “The Electrate Ludic Transversal.”

Linda Li-Bleuel, Department of Performing Arts: “Lucie Robert’s 10 + 1: A Landmark Work in the Creation of a Performance Medium.”

–Spring 2011

Steve Katz, Department of English, “Plato’s Nightmare: Poetry in an Age of Electracy?”

Barton Palmer, Department of English: “Textual Multiplicities and the Auteur Theory: Some Thoughts on Genette and Jameson”

Diane Perpich, Department of Philosophy and Religion: “Heidegger’s Contribution to Social Ontology.”

Susanna Ashton, Department of English: “South Carolina Slave Narratives.”

Martha Skinner, Department of Architecture: “CiTy-SCAN: The Sensual and Scientific Notation of the Human Body and the City Body”

Johannes Schmidt, Department of Languages: “Resisting theory: 18th-century German theater and the education of the masses.”

The award committee noted Tharon’s life-long work as a mentor of students in usability and community involvement, and his passionate encouragement of students in STC competitions. The committee thanked Tharon for his commitment to excellence in teaching technical communication. 

The award will be conferred at the Honors Banquet (8:00 pm –10:30 pm, in the Hyatt Regency) of the annual STC conference, which will be held on May 15-18 in Sacramento, California.

Congratulations, Tharon!

The O P E N Space:

The Open Space installation was created in response to Martin Heidegger’s essay, “What art poets for?” and Jacques Derrida’s and D.Diane Davis’ writing on hospitality. Cynthia Haynes, instructor of record for this RCID doctoral seminar on “Electrate Hospitality” (Fall 2010) challenged her students to unbuild the inhospitable.  Our goal was the creation of sites of hospitality that revealed the liminal zone of (im)materialization between unconditional and conditional hospitality to the Other. Through the process of subjecting each student’s disciplinary knowledge (architecture, packaging science, and rhetorical theory) to interdisciplinary collaborative invention, a transdiplinary product reducible to no one participant’s specific interests or discipline emerged. The consensus was that each wanted to ‘build’ a physical structure and each was able to contribute a unique element of the overall artistic vision.
 
Within this collaborative project, a ubiquitous architectural threshold was used to exaggerate the many cognitive thresholds required in order to digest theoretical discussions surrounding hospitality. The spatial installation considered the boundary as that from which something begun its presencing in lieu of a moment at which something stops. Visitors to the installation were hailed, asked to select a weapon of their choice, and invited to enter the structure.  Each space folded within a space took form as a series of doors with enigmatic symbols that articulated a variety of relationships to the Other. Each choice engaged new choices that asked entrants to contemplate their relationship to identity, to avataring, to Being.
 
Lauren’s reflections: we each brought some expertise into this collaboration. We also were intentionally non-hierarchical in our decision-making. Thus, the project made progress in transforming each of the fields of Packaging Science, Architecture, and Rhetorics. It was a joy to be a part of this project, and the class.
 
Steve’s reflections: I kept referring to it poorly as a “deconstructed video game” or “whatever the Object’s equivalent of the video-game-w/o-organs would be”.  Non-circuitous algorithms in space, maybe. I’m still in the process of trying to determine what exactly this thing means to us.  A spatial pedagogy? A chance reflection upon Latour’s actor-network theory?

Andrew’s reflections: From an engineering perspective, this project remixed traditional manufacturing processes and equipment in unique and novel ways. Mixing art, architecture and packaging science within the Rhetorics bowl created a marvelous soup. 
 
This specific installation was made possible with a generous donation from Pratt Industries (Greenville, SC).  The Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics at Clemson University generously volunteered its space, equipment and rendering facilities. The project is still ongoing and in the process of entering a textual-journal conversation aimed, the authors hope, at JAC along the lines of the rhetorical-pedagogical implications for trandisciplinary projects.

Professor Caruth delivered her lecture, “After the End: Psychoanalysis in the Ashes of History,” on Thursday, September 30th at 5 pm in Daniel Hall’s Class of 1941 Studio. Her lecture focused on the writings of French philosopher Jacques Derrida as well as Sigmund Freud’s reading of Gradiva, a novel about Pompeii by Willhelm Jensen.

In “After the End,” Caruth explored the ways in which philosophy and literature bear witness to a past buried in the ashes of history.

She also agreed to lead a seminar for faculty and students on her work on the philosopher Hannah Arendt.

The CLTC is supported with funds from the Humanities Advancement Board.

“I hope this email finds each of you well and that your terms are beginning smoothly.

I was honored to be asked to give the opening school address to entering freshmen and their parents at Queens University of Charlotte. I was asked to speak on Social media and it relationship to the university’s honor code.  I thought you might enjoy seeing it: http://jamcarthur.com/2010/08/23/non-ministrari-sed-ministrare/.

In other news, Erin and I are expecting and are thrilled to welcome our daughter on or around January 1, 2011.

Hope you are well.
–Mac”

Mac McArthur
http://jamcarthur.com/