The 2008 Eastern Communication Association Convention will be held May 1-4, 2008 at the Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, PA. Conference panels or presenters of particular interest to Burke scholars might include:
On Thursday: 2.26, 1:00-2:15 Rhetorical Framing and the Limits of Dissent
Chair: Meg Zulick, Wake Forest University
“Smiling Buddha: Scapegoating and Early Indian Nuclear Discourse” Brian Delong, Wake Forest University
“Burkean Scapegoating in the Rhetorical War on Terrorism” Brad Hall, Wake Forest University
“The 300, Persae and Symbolic Action” Sarah Spring, Miami of Ohio
“Theorizing the Effectiveness of Animal Rights Campaigns: Kenneth Burke and Holocaust Imagery” Joseph Packer, Wake Forest
“Connecting a Rhetorical Past to a Psychoanalytic Present: Kenneth Burke and Psychoanalysis” Paul E. Johnson, University of Iowa
This panel examines several case studies from a Burkean perspective in order to explore how rhetorical framing can act to undermine the ability to negotiate and persuade.
On Friday:
3.35, 12:30-1:45
Contemporary Applications of Burke: Analyses and Criticisms
Chair: Robert Westerfelhaus, College of Charleston
Respondent: James Klumpp, University of Maryland
“Emotions as the Foundation of Dramatism” James W. Chesebro, Ball State University, David T. McMahan, Missouri Western State University
“‘We’re Not Afraid’/Making a Difference: Burke’s Comic Frame and Re- Conceptualizing Public Responses to Terrorism” Thomas R. Dunn, University of Pittsburgh
“The Feminist Value of ‘Slippage’: Scene-Act Ratio in the Women’s Rights Rhetoric of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn” Mary Haman, The Pennsylvania State University
“Hope, Values and Commitment: A Burkeian Analysis” Deandre J. Poole, Howard University
“Attitudes toward Advertising: Capitalism and Advertising as the Container and the Thing Contained” Cem Zeytinoglu, East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
This panel features competitively chosen papers submitted to the Kenneth Burke Interest Group.
3.48, 2:00-3:15
Burke Across Time and Genres: Historic Roots and New Understandings
Chair: Elvera Berry, Roberts Wesleyan College
Respondent: Janie Harden Fritz, Duquesne University
“Burke’s Bias: Exploring his Theoretical Grounding” Celeste Grayson, Duquesne University
“The Rhetoric of Global Warming: A Burkean Difference” Elizabeth Hogenmiller, Roberts Wesleyan College
“Understanding Hypocrisy: Orwell through Burke” Bryan Blankfield, Roberts Wesleyan College
“A Comic Corrective: The Graphic Novel” John Loyd, Roberts Wesleyan College
The salience of Burkean approaches and terms is evident in ongoing applications across disciplinary, philosophical, and socio-political boundaries. What are the historic roots of Burke's own biases and how do we read him today? Whatever the genre or mediaextension, his rhetorical frame seems to “make a difference” that matters. The significance of the difference is illuminated through his philosophical lineage and illustrated in three types of rhetoric that show us ourselves: the rhetoric of ecology, of satire, and of the graphic novel.
3.69, 5:00-6:15 Kenneth Burke and Philosophy of Communication
Chair: Janie Harden Fritz, Duquesne University
“The Voice of the Other: Aristotle and Burke, Dialogue and the Development of Language/Consciousness” Richard Thames, Duquesne University
“Rhetoric, Ideology, and Myth: Burke’s Platonic Dialectic” Bryan Crable, Villanova University
“Philosophers of Life: Kenneth Burke and Henri Bergson” Erik Garrett, Duquesne University
“Kenneth Burke’s Way of Knowing: Epistemological Implications” Elvera Berry, Roberts Wesleyan College
The panelists will endeavor to demonstrate the applicability of Kenneth Burke to the Philosophy of Communication, an area of the disciple to which Burke is not normally supposed to be relevant. Each of the participants in this session will bring Kenneth Burke into conversation with an important philosopher or issue in the philosophy of communication.
On Saturday:
4.63, 2:30-3:45 In a panel titled “There’s something in the air”: Pittsburgh’s Rhetorical Heritage, see “Kenneth Burke and the Aesthetics of Pittsburgh” Paul Johnson, University of Iowa
And on Friday (3.20) at 9:30-10:45, the KENNETH BURKE BUSINESS MEETING convenes.
