CFP for a special issue of Rhetor on “National Identity and Rhetorical Scholarly Work” (edited by David Beard).
Rhetor, the Journal of the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric, will explore the relationship between the national (and related) identities of leading and emerging scholars in rhetorical studies and their teaching, writing, service and research.
We invite you to submit an essay of around 2,000 words exploring these overarching questions by January 1, 2017:
- How would you describe your national identity or identities? (For example, in the 21st century, national identities may be plural -- one may identify both as a Canadian and a member of a First Nation; one may identify as Canadian and Quebecois, or immigrant with dual identities. Intersectional identities (ethnicity, race, religion) may complicate your answer, and we are interested in complicated answers.
- How, if at all, do your national (and other, intersectional) identities inflect your work as a scholar, teacher, or practitioner of rhetoric?
We also look forward to answers that reject the assumptions in the question. If you contest national identity as a lens for understanding your work, what (if any) lens is preferred, why, and what does that tell us about your work as a rhetorician?
Model for this project
This project emulates a special issue of Rhetoric and Public Affairs which asked scholars to reflect on the ways that their religious traditions inflected their rhetorical work. National identity and traditions have (potentially) the same generative power, I think. These essays will also be valuable for the work of mapping the state of rhetorical scholarship in the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric, Canada, and more broadly.
Timeline for submissions to editor
If you agree to participate in this project, the timeline will be as follows:
- Abstract (200 words) by October 15, 2016 to dbeard@d.umn.edu
- Essays (2,000 words) by 1/15/17 to dbeard@d.umn.edu
- Single-blind peer review returned to authors by 3/15/17 from dbeard@d.umn.edu
- Revisions of invited pieces returned to Beard by 5/01/17 to dbeard@d.umn.edu
There is some flexibility in this schedule.
Why single blind peer review?
These essays will be personal -- they may discuss elements of your biography, they may discuss themes in your research, they may discuss the evolution in your thinking over the course of your career. (In fact, I expect that the essays will become touchstones, miniature bibliographic essays that introduce graduate students to your work and model for them a way to think about a scholarly identity.) The fiction that these pieces can be read as anonymous by the reviewers seems improbable. So, per standards of peer review in the sciences, for example, the author will be known to the reviewer, but the reviewer will not be known to the author.
Invitation to a conversation
I would be happy to talk individually with each author, to brainstorm and to draft a plan that can ensure that their voice is a part of this project. I can be reached at dbeard@d.umn.edu
Sincerely, David Beard, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, UM Duluth, and Guest Editor, Rhetor
You do not need to be Canadian to participate...
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