Liveblogging CSSR: Rhetorical Analyses of Canadian Culture

A number of the best papers at CSSR 2016 are specifically analyses of Canadian rhetorical artifacts.

The learning curve, for me, at this conference is double because the methods used are sometimes novel, sometimes innovative, and the objects of study are often Canadian.  Canadian cultural artifacts are often close to but not quite what an American thinks they might be.

Tracy Whalen, University of Winnipeg addresed "Memory, Representative Form, and National Identity: The Statue of Winnie the Bear and Captain Harry" in a manner that knocked my socks off.  (A photo of the statue is above, from the Destination Winnipeg website.)  She has managed a way to describe the statue as serving as the site for multiple intersecting ideologies active in the Winnipegian indentity.  Wow.

Whalen Abstract:  This presentation engages with questions of identity and memory as these relate to a celebrated statue of Winnie the Bear and Captain Harry Colebourn (a Canadian veterinarian and soldier) in theLondon Zoo and in Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park. Drawing on Janis Edwards and Carol Winkler’s notion of “representative form,” I examine the material form of the statue and its contributions to narratives of nation and commemoration.

John Moffatt, of the University of Saskatchewan, addressed "A Question of Displacement: Reading the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation’s Wartime Defence of Asian-Canadians" -- something that of course echoes American experiences with internment camps, but it's not quite a perfect analogy.  Moffatt's analysis (abstract below) demonstrates the difficulties of analyzing (through a Burekan lens) a document that seeks to advance a progressive agenda via lines of argument we might find offensive.

Moffatt Abstract: An analysis of the CCF-sponsored pamphlet “Oriental Canadians: Outcasts or Citizens?” (1943) reveals a serious contradiction in its rhetoric of social justice. The text posits a rhetorical audience ostensibly motivated to end discrimination against Asian Canadians, but its language consistently opposes Asian-Canadian identity to the harmony of the Cooperative Commonwealth.

I enjoyed Lori Leigh Davis, of the University of St Andrews, on "Organizational Rhetoric: Stakeholders in the Diamond Industry.  An Exploration into the Kimberley Process and Certificate

Scheme."  The project is in its early stages, largely a descriptive analysis of an industry controversy that she encountered in work in Calgary.  It was also fun to meet someone pursuing research in rhetoric as a Canadian living in Scotland.

Davis Abstract:  This paper will discuss organizational rhetorical strategies by the stakeholders of the only international regime organized to stem “conflict diamonds:” the Kimberley Process Certificate Scheme.