Congress theme: Confluence: Ideas, Identities, and Place

Winnipeg, Manitoba, grew at the place where two waterways---the Assiniboine and the Red Rivers---meet. This geographical flowing of rivers has "given rise" (not an inappropriate term, given local flooding) to this year's theme for the 2004 Congress---the confluence of ideas, identities and place.

Under this broad theme, CSSR invites proposals for its annual conference, to be held in conjunction with the Canadian Humanities and Social Sciences Congress at the University of Manitoba. As always, submissions that address some aspect of the theory, practice, and history of rhetoric will be welcomed, but we are particularly interested in submissions that respond to the theme of this year's Congress. And, as always, English and French submissions are equally sought. Participants are invited to present papers examining those spaces where rhetoric comes together with another kind of artefact or field of study.

Topics can include (but are certainly not limited to) the coming together---and, indeed, the roiling---of these ideas:

• Classical and contemporary rhetoric and their intermingling
• Rhetoric and different fields of inquiry (science, medicine, literary criticism, law, etc.)
• Rhetoric and popular culture
• Rhetoric and composition studies
• Rhetoric and different modes of communication (visual rhetorics, rhetorics of built architecture, rhetorics of interface design, etc.)
• Relationship between rhetoric and discourse analysis/semiotics
• Rhetoric and gender studies
• Meetings between rhetorics of inquiry and rhetorics of emotionality
• The relationship(s) between two or more different rhetorical thinkers

Papers can also address the coming together of rhetoric with identities and place:

• The rhetoric of multiculturalism
• The rhetoric of "globalization"
• Studies and/or practices of rhetoric in Canada in relation to those elsewhere
• The place of rhetoric in Canada
• The rhetoric of place/region/nation
• Rhetoric and professional/social group identification/definition
• Rhetorical theory in the workplace

General Papers in the Theory, Criticism, and History of Rhetoric

We are also, as usual, interested in hearing from researchers and scholars working or studying in any of the following areas:

• Rhetorical theory and/or criticism
• History of rhetoric
• Media communication
• Discourse analysis
• Rhetoric of political and social discourse
• Composition theory and pedagogy
• Communication pedagogy
• Sociolinguistics
• Semiotics
• Professional and technical communication

For scheduling reasons, presentations must not exceed twenty minutes. Please note, too, that presenters and participants must be members of CSSR/SCÉR.

Along with your full proposal of approximately 250 words, please submit a brief abstract of no more than 100 words which we will use for the program should your proposal be accepted. If at all possible, please submit your proposal and abstract electronically as either email-text or a rich text file.