The 11th Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society 2021
“Kenneth Burke in 2021: Seeing the Past, Envisioning the Future”
June 24-25, 2021
Online, hosted by the University of Maryland
View the Conference Program
Conference Organizer: Damien Pfister, University of Maryland, dsp@umd.edu
Submission deadline: 30 April 2021.
Submit proposal: : KBS 2021 Google Form Submission
Keynote Speakers
Theon Hill, Wheaton College
Kyle Jensen, Arizona State University
Overview and Update
One year ago, the Kenneth Burke Society postponed the Triennial Conference due to COVID-19. The conference has now been rescheduled for June 24-25, 2021, as a remote event. Although 2020 is (thankfully) in the past, the conference theme of “Kenneth Burke in 20/20: Seeing the Past, Envisioning the Future” will still guide our gathering. We envision a lively mix of synchronous and asynchronous presentations anchored by two keynote addresses from Dr. Theon Hill of Wheaton College and Dr. Kyle Jensen of Arizona State University.
In order to check virtual conference fatigue, we plan on having a slightly truncated schedule over two days, with no concurrent sessions. Six live sessions will be complemented by asynchronous presentations that will be made accessible for all those registered for the conference.Attending KBS 2020(1) will be free for all participants who are members of the KBS. Not yet a member? Student memberships are only $10 for a year, and regular memberships are only $25!
Schedule (all times EST)
Day 1, Thursday June 24, 2021
10 am—Keynote, Dr. Theon Hill
11-12:15—Session 1
12:15-1:00—Lunch break
1-2:15—Session 2
2:15-3:30—Session 3
3:30-4:30—Social Hour
Day 2, Friday, June 25, 2021
10 am—Keynote, Dr. Kyle Jensen
11-12:15—Session 4
12:15-1:00—Lunch break
1-2:15—Session 5
2:15-3:30—Session 6
3:30-4:30—Social Hour
Submissions may be 350-word paper or panel proposals. They can be directly submitted via the following link: KBS 2021 Google Form Submission. Proposals should be submitted by April 30, with acceptances by May 15.
For more information, and to join KBS or renew your membership, please visit: https://www.kbjournal.org/join_kbs
Conference Organizer: Damien Pfister, University of Maryland, dsp@umd.edu
KBS President, Bryan Crable, Villanova University, bryan.crable@villanova.edu
About the Conference Theme
In our current moment, appeals to history are commonplace—whether in slogans seeking to recapture an idyllic “America,” in news stories seeking to link current white supremacist violence to that of past decades, or in academics’ reflection upon the past practices and attitudes that continue to do consequential work in the present. As Burke would remind us, of course, these appeals are quite complex; our narratives of the past are dialectically equivalent to our assumptions about the nature of the present.
Yet, there is another complication at work here. It is the contention of this conference, and of its organizers, that Burke’s writings and thought remain vitally relevant to the analysis and navigating of the conditions of contemporary social life—here in the US and across the globe. Yet, calling us to embrace Burke for the future does require that we take stock of our past. The Kenneth Burke Society, and Burke Studies itself, are, of course, deeply implicated in the conversations started in many disciplines regarding the kinds of scholarship, and scholars, who have been traditionally valued and elevated, and the kinds of systemic inequalities that this has fostered. The Society, and the field of Burke Studies in general, has—without, to draw on a quote from Burke, deliberate intent upon the part of anyone—for too long functioned as an exclusionary space, reproducing an equation of Burke with “white” and “male.” This has worked to denigrate and marginalize work by the many women (starting with Marie Hochmuch Nichols) who have been excellent readers and scholars of Burke. This has also worked to discourage students and faculty of color from finding a home in the Society—and has rendered illegible those scholars of color who do, and have done, excellent work with Burke’s texts.
Although the KBS is not alone in this regard, this is our past. The task, then, is to make something different for the future, to find possibilities in the past that were not seized (by Burke, or those who followed in his footsteps), possibilities that can aid in that effort.
The conference theme thus calls for papers and proposals that explore the relevance of Burkean thought for collectively envisioning—and speaking into existence—a new and different kind of future. As Burke says in his afterword to Attitudes Toward History, “throughout the History (the Changing Story) of Acceptances and Rejections there broods the fantastic Maybe of the transformations.” Over the course of the convention, a combination of keynote and plenary speakers, attendees, and seminar leaders will engage in a collective effort to find the hopeful and just Maybes in our History of Acceptances and Rejections.
Submit your proposal here: KBS 2021 Google Form Submission
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Program of the KBS Triennial Virtual Conference 2021
The Kenneth Burke Society Triennial Virtual Conference 2021 will take place from 9:45 am to 3:30 pm EST, June 24 and 25, 2021. This single stream conference will be hosted in the same Zoom room for every session. The link will be emailed to registrants the day before the conference—please do not circulate it or post it publicly to prevent Zoombombing.
Please register for the conference here. We cannot send you the Zoom link if you do not register. Reminder that the conference is free for all KBS members; you can join the KBS online.
Obviously, the Triennial comes after a long pandemic year and is accompanied by many of the challenges of conferencing from home. We want to underline that, while we hope that people are able to attend many sessions and create a conference vibe, we also understand the realities of cameo appearances by pets and kids, Zoom fatigue, and the various surprises that life will no doubt throw at us. So, following our patron saint, we will try to muddle through the virtual conference scramble as best we can while looking onward and upward to new futures for Burkean studies.
Below is the program for the synchronous part of the conference. Please take special note of the two keynotes, Dr. Theon Hill’s “Burkean Identification, Coalition Politics, and the Black Freedom Struggle” and Dr. Kyle Jensen’s “Identification’s Dimensions,” both at 10 am EST
Synchronous presenters will have the ability to share their slides, if they have any. Chairs will guide their respective sessions, just as in a "normal" conference. Please be mindful of keeping presentations to the 12-15 minute range so that we have time at the end of the session to engage the papers.
After the synchronous program, please note the line-up of asynchronous papers. We will circulate the asynchronous presentations to participants after the conference concludes.
June 24, 2021
9:45—Conference welcome
10:00—Keynote, Dr. Theon Hill, “Burkean Identification, Coalition Politics, and the Black Freedom Struggle”
11-12:15—Session 1—Burke + Religion
- Joshua Hill, Pennsylvania College of Technology, “Re-introducing Augustinian Hope to the Humility of Burke’s Logology: A Probe into Substantial Participation”
- Camille K Lewis, Furman University, “‘Love Bob Jones or Go to Hell’: Klandamentalism as a Dysfunctional Romance”
- Steven Mailloux, Loyola Marymount University/ University of California, Irvine, “Diagraming Jesuits of Logology: Comparing Kenneth Burke and Gaston Fessard on Truth and Freedom in History”
- Joel Overall, Belmont University, “Hall Johnson, African American Spiritual Music, and Burke’s “One Light in a Dark Valley”“
12:15-1:00—Lunch break
1-2:15—Session 2—Burke in the 21st-Century Classroom
Chair: M. Elizabeth Weiser, Ohio State University
- Annie Laurie Nichols, St. Vincent College, “Perfected by the Other: Learning Cluster Analysis with Undergraduates”
- Laura Van Beveren, University of Ghent & Kris Rutten, University of Ghent, “Educating Students in the Social and Behavioral Sciences to Become Symbol-Wise Practitioners”
- Ann George, Texas Christian University, “Drama in a Graduate Seminar”
- Shannon Walters, Temple University, “Muscular Drooping and Sentimental Brooding: Burke’s Crip Time-War Time Disability Pedagogy”
- Elvera Berry, Roberts Wesleyan College, “Burke for Undergraduates: Equipment for Thinking, Working, and Living”
2:15-3:30—Session 3—The Future of Burkean Rhetorical Criticism
Chair: Jouni Tilli, University of Jyväskylä (Finland)
- Clarke Rountree, University of Alabama-Huntsville, “What Burkean Rhetorical Critics Can Learn from Judicial Discourse”
- Kris Rutten, University of Ghent, “Burkean Rhetorical Criticism and the Future of Education”
- Rochelle Gregory, North Central Texas College, “Understanding Identification and Symbolic Action in Autistic Language and Communication”
- Gretchen Berry, Villanova University, “Dance of Bodies/Dance of Words: A Burkean Analysis of Jordan Peele’s Us”
3:30-4:30—Social Hour
June 25, 2021
9:45—Zoom room opens
10—Keynote, Dr. Kyle Jensen, “Identification’s Dimensions”
11-12:15—Session 4—Attitudes Toward Institutions
- Edwin S. Lee, The University of Alabama, “Josh Gibson’s Baseball Statistics and the Power Structures Embedded in Language”
- Deborah Leiter, University of Wisconsin at Platteville, “God Terms, Devil Terms, and the Logology of the White Evangelical Church”
- AmyLea Clemons, Francis Marion University, “The Drama of Fan Relations: Cluster Analysis and Fan Historiography”
- Katherine Tanski, Gonzaga University, “The Bureaucratization of the Rhetorical Imaginative in NCA and NCTE Histories”
12:15-1:00—Lunch break
1-2:15—Session 5—Apocalypse (Right) Now
Chair: David Blakesley, Clemson University
- David Blakesley, Clemson University, “The Value of (Burkean) Theory in an Age of Activism”
- Cody Hunter, Clemson University, “A Flash of Light to Blurred Vision: The Rhetoric of the Threat of a Nuclear War The Day After Trinity and in the Year 2020”
- Jacob Richter, Clemson University, “Nervously Loquacious at the Edge of an Abyss: Kenneth Burke, Trained Incapacities, and the Vocabularies of Climate Change”
2:15-3:30—Session 6—Burking the Digital/Digitizing Burke
- John Dowd, Bowling Green State University, “The Irony of Contemporary Loneliness: Confirmation, Disconfirmation, and Symbolic Solace within Ubiquitous Digital Connection”
- Kalin Schultz, University of Maryland, “Should We Laugh or Should We Cry?: The Use of Burke’s Perspective by Incongruity in Sexual Assault Discourse”
- Joseph S. Vuletich, Indiana University, Bloomington, “iWitness: Kenneth Burke, Alan Turing, and Thinking (with) Machines”
- Karen Walker, independent scholar, “Traversing the AI Ethics Landscape”
3:30-4:30—Social Hour
Asynchronous Presentations
View the Video Presentations at KB Journal
- Allison Diaz, Texas Christian University, “One Man’s Dream: A Pentadic Study of The Walt Disney Company”
- Michael David Measel, Clemson University, “The Rhetoric of Kenneth Burke’s ‘One Light in a Dark Valley’”
- Rebekah Bennetch, University of Saskatchewan, “That’s Not Funny! Applying Burke’s Comic Corrective to Teaching in a Pandemic”
- Jarron Slater, Brigham Young University, “Suffering as a Catalyst for Creative Acts”
- Michael Feehan, independent scholar, “Kenneth Burke’s Late Theory of History: The Personalistic and Instrumentalist Principles”
- Zari Taylor, University of North Carolina, “‘Crude Magic, But Effective’: A Burkean Analysis of Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign”
- Rebecca Oliver, University of Alabama, “Redemption and Metaphor: Historical and Present Constructions of Democracy in Joe Biden's Inaugural Address”
- Maximilian Pietroforte Brichta, University of Southern California, “Believing (for): Rhetorical Form in Hillsong California’s Sunday Service”
- Richard Thames, Duquesne University, “Kenneth Burke’s Anticipating and Remediating Thomas Kuhn”
- Yohei Chiba, Chukyo University (Japan), “Purifying the Aesthetic: I. A. Richards and Kenneth Burke on Interpretation of Errors in Teaching”
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Video Presentations: 2021 Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society
Presented at the 11th Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society, 2021
Rebekah Bennetch, University of Saskatchewan
“That’s Not Funny! Applying Burke’s Comic Corrective to Teaching in a Pandemic”
Maximilian Pietroforte Brichta, University of Southern California
"Rituals of Reconciliantion: On the Formal Linkage of Pop Culture and Piety in Hillsong Church Services"
Yohei Chiba, Chukyo University (Japan)
“Purifying the Aesthetic: I. A. Richards and Kenneth Burke on Interpretation of Errors in Teaching”
Allison Diaz, Texas Christian University
“One Man’s Dream: A Pentadic Study of The Walt Disney Company”
Michael Feehan, Independent Scholar
“Kenneth Burke’s Late Theory of History: The Personalistic and Instrumentalist Principles”
Joshua Hill, Pennsylvania College of Technology
“Re-introducing Augustinian Hope to the Humility of Burke’s Logology: A Probe into Substantial Participation”
Michael David Measel, Clemson University
“The Rhetoric of Kenneth Burke’s ‘One Light in a Dark Valley’”
Rebecca Oliver, University of Alabama
“Redemption and Metaphor: Historical and Present Constructions of Democracy in Joe Biden's Inaugural Address”
Jarron Slater, Brigham Young University
“Suffering as a Catalyst for Creative Acts”
Zari Taylor, University of North Carolina
“‘Crude Magic, But Effective’: A Burkean Analysis of Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign”
- 7133 reads